In 2015 I won a dinner voucher from debuikvan.nl, for €75/person a three-course meal with free aperitif at FG Restaurant. Now, that amount will only buy you lunch with a glass of wine at this 2-star Michelin restaurant so I was quiet happy. But I’ve completely forgotten about it until more than a year later. Nonetheless FG allowed us to still use it for our 9th anniversary. So heavily pregnant sometimes in December last year, we booked a table for two for probably our last quiet dinner together.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about these promotional meals at chic restaurants, is that they’ll probably give you the cheapest in the menu. It’s fixed so you can’t choose. It will either be salmon, chicken or deer in autumn/winter. So we went without too much expectations.
FG restaurant had just moved to its new location in De Hofbogen (beside FG Food Labs) that summer of 2016. The new FG departed from its casual chic interior in Lloydstraat and went for a futuristic, relaxed ambiance with playful lights and high fauteuil. Too high that I drowned in them even in my heaviest.
As usual, the food and service at FG Restaurant were elegant and undoubtedly delectable, worthy of the Michelin stars. And I myself is a fan of the chef. From his Ivy days, to his FG Food Labs, to FG Bistro, even the short-lived FG Noodle Bar, if Francois Geurds opens a restaurant, I will eat there (when is the okonomiyaki bar opening again?).
Even with this dinner, he was gracious. It was a 3-course meal (if you should know, there’s actually no 3-course meal on the FG menu) but we probably got more than 10 dishes. There were fish, deer, that tom kai soup, my favourite canelé bordelaise, the chocolate bar with gold trimmings (bit dry though) and the dessert that was served in a smoking jar (fancy). They were all delicious and the staff were ever so gracious – the maître fromager who enticed me with cheese suitable for pregnant women, the sommelier whose wine recommendation I couldn’t refuse, the lady at the door who gave us goodies to take home and Francois himself who always comes to your table to ask if the food was alright.
But!
What is that spoon of caviar doing in my rather refined fish dish? I mean, I know it is expensive and posh but it just doesn’t belong there. Nor to that other dish that we got that evening. No matter how many times I tried to place it in my taste buds, that caviar was just out of place.
It must be a promotion because I think they’re still incorporating this on their dishes one year later.
Call me a purist. I like caviar simply in a blini with a shot of Beluga, a glass of champagne or even a really cheap Russian vodka. Even the slogan of Imperial Heritage, the brand of this particular caviar says it “caviar needs no occasion, it is one.” So you don’t slap it on top of an already “uitstekend” dish as an afterthought.
Chef Francois Geurds had become sort of a rock start in Rotterdam. He deserves all the accolade because I think he really is a good chef. I just hope he would stop putting that caviar where it does not belong.
The dinner cost us €150, exactly the price we won, including the wine. I think that was Chef FG’s gift to us (although he didn’t say). Or the cashier made a mistake. Thanks FG and debuikvan.nl!
FG Restaurant
Katshoek 37b
3032 AE Rotterdam
+31 10 425 0520
info@fgrestaurant.nl
