We visited Spectrum on November 3, 2019 with friends. Spectrum currently has 2 Michelin stars. Spectrum is located in the Waldorf Astoria in Amsterdam (Herengracht 542-556) and the restaurant was previously known as Librije’s Zusje.

The chef is Sidney Schutte and the maître is Sascha Speckemeier. The chef and restaurant manager worked together at Librije in Zwolle and are an amazing duo. In 2015 they started to work together again in Amsterdam. We are glad they still work together.

We went for a 7-course menu. The interior of the restaurant is changed together with the name change. They only have round tables now. The restaurant is located on the ground level of the restaurant with views to the garden.

Dinner with friends. We are going once in a while to Michelin star restaurants with each other.

We started with 5 appetizers before we ate our 7-course menu.

The conch with kaffir lime was my personal favourite because of the lime (sour) taste together with the silt taste of caviar. An excellent dish.

The first dish was scampi with a “bitterbal” of razor clams and cockles. The scampi was raw and was companioned by a dressing of verbena. A bitterbal is a Dutch dish that you eat when drinking in the afternoon. Normally it’s deep fried meet. Here the twist is that the ball was made of fish, it was deep fried and crispy.

The second dish was lobster with veal liver, pearls of blue cheese and some oysters. The lobster was slowly cooked, the liver on top of the lobster was excellent but the main surprise were the pearls of the blue cheese. What a great tasting dish.

Third dish: glazed cuttlefish with mango. A tasty dish, but loved the previous a bit more.

Fourth dish were two preparations of sea bass. The first was presented as finger food, on the plate the bone was presented. The first preparation was a crispy sea bass.

The second preparation was backed sea bass with passionfruit and mackerel. Although I do not love smoked mackerel, I loved this dish very much. The passionfruit was so intense and tasted great with the sea bass.

Fifth dish was poultry (grouse). The presentation is superb. The grouse was lukewarm topped with mushrooms. We missed a bite. The mushrooms were fresh. The sauces are very pleasant for the eye and very tasteful.

We decided to take some cheese because Sasha recommended this to us. We got 4 different Dutch cheeses with a map of The Netherlands so we knew where the cheese comes from.

The sixth dish was the first dessert. We got beet with lime, almonds and ricotta cheese. In my opinion a bit too cheesy, but if you like ricotta this is your dish.

The seventh / last dish of the meal. licorice (drop), sunflowers, peas made of tarragon. The misty picture is because of the dry ice that is used to make this a mystique dish. Wow what an amazing dish.

With the coffee / tea we received friandises. What we loved it that all the friandises were equal to the appetizers we already had. A great way to end your meal is to start with the same dishes, only sweet……

Overall

This was our third visit to this great restaurant. The interior is changed, the staff is the same and we love the staff. We regret that chef Sidney does not appear in the restaurant to talk to the guests but maitre Sasha takes great care of the guests. The hotel and restaurant are beautiful. We feel very welcomed in this restaurant. If you have a celebration or you want to dine in style I highly recommend this restaurant.