Gerie Niemarkt waits at the bar of restaurant Le Hollandais with coffee and Christmas bread from Hartog, generously spread with salted butter. “Do you like that?” she asks. How can you not like it? Nobody would know either. “I love food so much. If I lost my sense of smell and taste for good, I would seriously wonder if life still has meaning. Like the smell of coffee in the morning, imagine missing it forever. ”
Niemarkt has been employed by Le Hollandais for twenty years. At ‘the front’ as it is called in catering language: she is a sommelier, hostess and worked in the waiters until the second catering lockdown. As of January 1, owner and chef Adriaan van Raab van Canstein will hand over the keys of his Amsterdam culinary institute to a new owner, who will start working with other employees.
No one feels doubly about it, she says. “It is good that a decision has been taken, but it is of course an emotional event, after all these years. I’ve always loved it here. First as a guest, I already regularly visited Le Hollandais, which existed for five years when I started working here. The atmosphere, the people, the wine, the delicious cuisine: rustic French with Italian influences. The more I ate here, the more I wanted a job here. ”
Niemarkt gained her knowledge of wine, food and restaurant guests largely in Beddington’s, the Amsterdam restaurant of Jean Beddington, one of the first female top chefs in the Netherlands. The two women worked together for ten years from 1988. “Jean knows an incredible amount. And she is very sweet. On the birthday of one of the staff, you could choose a country. She would then spend two hours cooking staff meals in the style of that country. Lebanese, Turkish, Japanese, anything was possible, and she offered a meal that you wouldn’t get in a restaurant, so delicious. In the work Jean gave us a lot of freedom. In this way you learn faster and more thoroughly than if you are always taken by the hand or instructed how to do it. ”
Niemarkt grew up in Hoorn, in a liberal Catholic family. Her mother, who was a housewife, was on the pill after three children. Her father worked as a clerk at a notary. A simple, fine childhood, she says. Nothing special, no trauma. “I was in the classroom with children from surrounding villages who had to cycle 20 kilometers to get to school. It was those handball women. Very strong. With gym I was afraid of them because they could throw so hard. They also had breasts when I was still completely flat. I remained a child for a long time, a late bloomer. ”
The bad side of alcohol that Niemarkt (herself a moderate drinker) has seen countless times in the Amsterdam catering industry, she saw for the first time as a child in Hoorn. “The West Frisian mentality is hard work and a lot of drinking. On Patch Day – that’s a kind of Black Friday on the market – men walked around with underpants over their long trousers. ”
What?
“Tradition. And starting drinking at seven in the morning was part of that. As a little girl I thought it was scary, those drunken men in the market where I searched for bargains with my mother at half past nine. There was also a lot of drinking in the cafe. And always fight. I thought it was normal. When I first lived in Amsterdam, with a hawking landlady who wanted someone in the house to talk to, at half past eleven I said to my new friends: “Come on guys, get out of the pub because they are going to fight like this.” Everyone looked at me: where are you from? ”
She started her catering career as a dishwasher in a classic French restaurant in Hoorn: Rijk van Wijk, named after the chef. From him she had to enter the ministry when she actually did not dare. “I was very shy as a child. But soon I liked it. I like to make an evening beautiful with a team, an adrenaline is released which I do well. Rijk had already correctly estimated that. He was a special man who possessed the gift of listening. He also cursed, while at work. Once I realized it wasn’t personal, it helped me a lot later. An occasional swear and swear part is part of a catering kitchen. You have to develop a thick skin, so that you do not always burst into tears when someone is ugly. ”
But you shouldn’t let such an alpha boss walk all over you, should you?
“Certainly not. You also have to be on your own. That is sometimes difficult. Not like that in Le Hollandais, and certainly not with Jean, but for example in the Amstel Hotel. There I worked as a nurse in the breakfast service, during the time when Klaas Bruinsma permanently lived in a suite. When I came in at six in the morning, a bunch of beautiful ladies always just descended that imposing staircase. Mr Bruinsma’s visit, the porter would say. Prostitutes. I had never heard of Bruinsma, spring chick that I was. When a colleague said he was the largest hash dealer in Europe, I didn’t believe it because he always looked so neat. ”
In the Amstel Hotel of the eighties, there was a lot of messing around and hunting around, says Niemarkt. She regularly saw colleagues pushing back money and belongings. “That was a totally new side to life for me. I do not speak well, but the fact that people apparently did not feel morally burdensome, the managers also had to thank themselves. They were unkind and condescending to the staff. ”
Even the sweet breakfast girl from Hoorn?
“I always started to complain about my curls, which I put up neatly. To the director: “Your hair has to be tidier.” What do you want? That I’m going to iron it? He thought he was a good idea. It was so authoritarian and hierarchical. If you worked in the brasserie and had to get something in the star restaurant, they just looked through you. But I got my revenge. The chef who ignored me came to dinner with Jean eight years later with his wife and it was so obvious that he was having a miserable marriage. Now I get it, I thought: you are a deeply unhappy man. ”
Do you see many miserable marriages?
“Lots of burnt-out other halves who are both looking to the left with or without a telephone, yes. We try to help them by telling them something nice at the table that they can comment on. And we ensure that the food gets out of the kitchen faster: “Table 2 has to have dessert immediately after the main course, because they have nothing to tell each other.” That is not silly. It was not. Their perception of time is different from ours. By accelerating, you do those people a favor, you relieve the pain. ”
What do you do when someone is crying?
“I often see it coming. Oh dear, that could make you cry. I keep an eye on them a bit, if they want something, I stop the next course for a moment. Often people do recover. They are actually always women. I have only seen a man crying once. ”
What is the effect of crying on the atmosphere in the dining room?
“Everyone notices it when emotions take over somewhere. We had one time where a fight started at a table and after while everyone was arguing; it skipped. That was a terrible night. ”
The whole range of colors of human behavior will of course pass you by here.
“You experience a lot, yes. Lots of drink related states. And opinionated characters. Or the combination, also nice. We once had a man with his cute daughters who had an allergic reaction to scallops after quite a bit of wine. His head and neck swelled completely, he became more and more purple, and just think that something like this will pass by itself. I said: “Sir, please go to the OLVG, it is near here.” No, he didn’t want to. Just sat there, another glass of wine, it swelled even more. In the meantime, everything went on here: “Madam, would you like dessert?” I don’t get rid of such a stressful scene immediately, I will take it home with me. But the happy memories predominate. The great thing about Le Hollandais is that we have such nice, lovely guests. Very mixed too. ”
How have you seen the Amsterdam restaurant climate change?
“I think the consequence of the crisis of 2008 is most memorable. That savage, wild life with endless cash-smacking in restaurants was suddenly over. If people have to pay for themselves, and everything is no longer possible at the expense of the company, they will take a slightly cheaper bottle. That ‘anything goes’ mentality has never returned. Yes, after the first wave. Then, with joy, everyone went out to dinner hysterically and ordered one precious bottle of wine after another. After three weeks it returned to normal in terms of spending. ”
Is Le Hollandais an old-fashioned restaurant now?
“I do think that we are the last of the Mohicans, after the disappearance of Christophe, Bordewijk, Marius, Van Vlaanderen. You really go out for dinner here. These are dishes that you do not easily make yourself. Pretty heavy too; when you come home after an evening at Le Hollandais, you don’t have to bake another sandwich. You are now seeing more and more that shared dining idea, with light-footed lifestyles. I find that quite tiring. Or this one: “Are you familiar with the concept?” Then I actually want to walk out the door. I just want good food on a plate for myself. And I want to choose myself, not eat according to a concept. ”
“What I have also seen change, by the way, is the knowledge of wine among the Dutch. It has increased enormously. They sometimes start lecturing me now. Men. Nowadays we also regularly have a question about vin nature. ”
You look like a creepy insect is crawling up your thigh.
“People come in and shout before they even take off their coats: ‘Which fin nature do you have ?!’ We have one, and it is quite good, but we don’t like it. I have trouble with it and this is why: they are wines of ‘let everything go and then it will be fine’. Only, wine does not just go well. If you say this in restaurant Choux, you will almost be expelled, but most wines need something to guide the process. ”
“Not all. In Provence, for example, the Mistral blows, a dry wind, and therefore there is much less rot in that area. Then you also have to spray less and that is of course great, but if you make wine somewhere where it is even a little more humid, you have to do something. It is also a bit of logical thinking. ”
She points to a black dot that flies by. “If a fruit fly lands in your wine, even for a few seconds, it releases something that affects the taste. I have of course been in the cellar of an organic winery, and I smelled the same fruit fly smell there. That cannot be good. ”
“When people want to drink organic wine for their health, I always have to laugh a little. You are drinking wine, alcohol, unhealthy, and now you are going to squeak about those substances? That behavior is completely inconsistent. But yes, we are inconsistent creatures, I also like. ”
Someone walks past the window waving. A regular guest, says Niemarkt. “We have a lot of regular guests from all over the city. You grow with them a bit if you work somewhere for a long time. People eating out for the first time since the birth of a child. After a few years, the children are allowed to eat out. Later friends and girlfriends appear at the table. Special to experience. ”
“When I suddenly don’t see someone anymore, it gives a strange feeling of concern. Where have they gone? Have you moved? Apart? Sick? Bankrupt? Often I don’t find out. That is also part of this profession, it is intimate and fleeting at the same time. ”
What will you do in 2021?
“No idea. Rethink what I like. Something about people. Haha, that sounds like I just got out of high school. It’s what I want. And I also have a lot of knowledge about wine and food. Letting go of all that and only maintaining it as a hobbyist also feels crazy. Anyway, I have conversations with retraining specialists, two nice girls who are trying to get something out of me. I am curious about what I am going to do. ”
–
