After the great meal at 212 last year, I couldn’t wait to go back again and decided to take my friend Melvin there for his birthday dinner. I hadn’t checked the menu when I made the reservation, so I only noticed a couple of days before that the chef’s menu was almost completely the same as last August. Perhaps chef Richard van Oostenbrugge has been too busy opening new restaurants? But after reviewing my notes from the last time, I decided I would not mind at all to have the tuna and langoustine again. And so I asked whether it would be possibile to substite the sea bass (my least favorite dish of last year) with the lobster, and that was possible for a very small surcharge (10 euros). We had the 5-course chef’s menu (228 euros) with cheese (23 euros), deluxe wine pairing (246 euros), and coffee/tea with friandises (9.50 euros).

We started with a very nice 2013 vintage Champagne Témoignage by Jean Velut, 100% Chardonnay, aged 8 years on the lees. Silky mousse, very complex, elegant, and balanced.

The first thing on the table was thin and crispy candied flowers with cherry syrup, served on a branch.

Next was a ‘bread stick’ with aged Beemster cheese and orange zest, crab with lime, lavender and sour cream, and foie gras with umeboshi and shii takes mushrooms.

The bread stick was amazing, it also had fennel seeds and fennel fronds.

The final amuse was a sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke) that was hollowed out, roasted until very crunchy…

…with a vinaigrette of different types of garlic, grey shrimp, and grated Belper Knolle cheese from Switzerland.

The first wine was 2008 Chablis Premier Cru Côte de Lechet by Domaine du Vieux Chateau (100% Chardonnay). From the age and style of wine making an oxidative style of wine, but very complex with a great balance between freshness and creaminess.

This was a very good pairing for the bluefin tuna belly with imperial caviar, grilled broccoli, and vinaigrette of mustard and Gillardeau oyster. I liked last August’s version with green beans even better, but green beans are not in season at the moment. Still a great dish.

The second wine was a 2017 Ried Achleiten Grüner Veltliner Smaragd by Domäne Wachau, a full-bodied and complex Grüner Veltliner that appeared much more youthful than you would expect from the age.

It was a very good pairing for the langoustine, confit in duck fat, with arabica (coffee), a dashi and foie gras sauce, and freshly shaved katsuobushi. This was one of my favorite dishes of last year and I really liked it again. The langoustine had great texture, which is difficult to accomplish.

The pairing for the lobster was a 2018 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru La Maltroie by Domaine Fontaine-Gagnard (100% Chardonnay). And excellent wine with a great balance and nice minerality.

The European ‘blue’ lobster had been poached in bacon jelly and was served with white asparagus, a fresh morel stuffed with lobster eggs, and a vin jaune sauce. What a wonderful dish! The lobster had a wonderful deep sweet flavor (European lobsters are more flavorful than North American lobsters) and paired wonderfully with the subtle bacon flavor. What a nice idea to stuff a morel with lobster eggs, and it tasted great as well. It goes without saying the the Chassagne was an outstanding pairing for this dish.

The wine for the main course was a 2019 Alte Reben Malterdingen by Bernhard Huber, 100% Pinot Noir from Baden in Germany. Huber is known to be one of the best Pinot Noir producers in Germany, and this wine clearly showed that. It was elegant and powerful at the same time, with a wonderful balance and aroma.

It was a great pairing for the veal sweetbread with crust of sourdough croutons, braised artichoke, cream of grilled sardines, and sardine garum (fish sauce). Wow, what a dish! Last week’s sweetbread dish at Mos has only held its position as my favorite sweetbread preparation ever for one week, because this was even better. The sweetbread was very tender and juicy and still pink inside, and the crunchy crust on the outside. The combination with the sardine and artichoke was amazing. The wine could handle both the sweetbread and the the sardines, and even the artichokes.

We opted for cheese as an addition to the chef’s menu.

The sommelier suggested a glass of 2017 Musella Amarone with the cheese, and paired some cheeses with it. I think hard cheeses would have worked better with the wine than the washed rind cheeses.

The dessert amuse was chocolate with roquefort cheese. It sounds strange, but was delicious.

With dessert we had the 1997 Château Haut-Bergeron Sauternes. Very nicely aged and with a good acidity.

This was a very good pairing for the signature dessert of the chef: an ‘apple’ made from sugar with a ‘core’ of green apple and ginger sorbet inside, with chocolate ‘seeds’ and crispy salted caramel base.

We ended the meal with an excellent set of friandises, including baba au rhum, brown butter madeleines, and canelés.

This was another great meal at 212. Like at Spectrum, I would expect a third star to be awarded soon. The quality of food, wine, and service certainly warrants that. I was a bit worried when I saw the menu a few days ago that I would be disappointed because of the similarity to last year’s menu, but I should not have worried because we had a wonderful evening anyway. 212 remains one of my favorite restaurants and I can’t wait to go back — but I will check whether the menu has changed next time.