The last 3 days Café George at the Plein in The Hague had an original pre-opening. Guests could go on a ‘blind date’ with George. Like in the other George bistro’s in Amsterdam and Laren, we tasted delicious French bistro dishes like Steak Tartare and Lobster Linguini as well as popular desserts like lemon pie, cheesecake and île flottante. We wish the team from George a lot of success at the Plein in The Hague.
Bacchus WijnfestivalThis summer, while the outdoor festivals are sprouting everywere, the Bacchus Wine Festival is definately worth mentioning. At this festival there is room for 250 different types of wines! For this stunning variety of wines the organization works close together with ten well known wine importers from Amsterdam and its surroundings. The festival takes place at the ‘Amsterdamse Bos’ from 5 to 7 September.
The comfort standard at the festival is higher than most outdoor events. With real wine glasses, flushing toilets and several rolling kitchens it should be fine with the luxe experience.
Exclusively designed to give their guests unique and unprecedented access to historical, cultural and local lifestyle experiences, The Peninsula Tokyo Academy offers a collection of bespoke programmes for both adults and children. Kids staying at the hotel as from 1 October, will get the chance to live out an episode of Pokémon with characters like Pikachu, Lucario and friends in an interactive game designed exclusively for the hotel. Kids as from five years old are invited to hunt down Pokémon characters, armed with a Poké Ball. A game that is a bit like hide and seek. Great way to entertain the kids of your guests and an inspiration for hotels in Belgium to introduce a meeting with Tintin! Or for the hotels in The Netherlands with Miffy.
The last couple of weeks, I noticed that the car park where I always park wasn’t as packed as usual. In Arnhem, they have a nice solution for car parks during the summer. They created a ‘Roof Garden’. A public place or a all-in-one location, where you can hang-out, drink something, eat a ‘roof’-meal, enjoy the garden and follow a bee workshop. You can even play ping pong, practice ‘roof’yoga, see a ‘roof’-movie and exercise at the underground gym. Furthermore, it is a showroom for creatives and cultural initiatives, such as a silent disco. The design is sustainable, it uses solar energy and for example the furniture is created from wooden pallets by volunteers.
Update: 3 August was the final day, luckily we still got the pictures.
logo: Armand Sol #stealmyideaIn September the first dump supermarket ‘Gekke Gerrit’ will open in Amsterdam. The supermarket sells remnants that brand supermarkets are not allowed to sell anymore and offers left over seasonal products outside the season, such as ice cream in the winter. The dump supermarket sells these products for the lowest prices. The store will be a pilot, but owner Gerrit Hoksberg hopes to open more dump supermarkets.
Garrett OliverOn Thursday 17 July Brooklyn lager officially introduced its beer in Amsterdam. The beer is brought to the Netherlands by Bier & Co and fits well in the growing demand for specialty beers. The ‘4 Pint Rule ‘, where the drinker wants to (and can) drink four pints will, be a welcome addition to the heavier and more extravagant specialty beers.
Brooklyn Lager’s brewmaster Garrett Oliver wrote several books including one about beer and food pairing. He was important for the introduction of the Slow Food Movement in his country. The brewery has a Slow Food NYC approval and runs on 100% wind energy.
The city Nijmegen has the cheapest prices on patios of the Netherlands. The average price for a round of drinks (2 coffee’s, 2 beers, 2 softdrinks, 2 glasses of Rosé wine) at a patio in Nijmegen is € 18,77. Van Spronsen & Partners horeca-advies conducts this survey annually. The article is only available in Dutch.
Last weekend I read a blog by Ciao Tutti about the Mercato Centrale in Florence. Within approximately 3000 square meters above the Mercato Centrale you will find a selection of small restaurants, winebars and tasting rooms that are in place to allow you to try the best Italian delicacies. This in addition to the market where you can buy local products. A type of “foodhallen” that have been popular in South European countries for years. The owners of Eataly were able to also make this concept of a combination of restaurants + retail popular outside of Italy. The growth of Eataly locations seems unstoppable, right now they have 27 locations of which 10 in Italy, 13 in Japan and the others in cities like New York, Chicago, Dubai and Istanbul. Rumors say they are working on a Dutch location.
While reading I started wondering why don’t we have a “foodhall” with Dutch products?
This autumn the first indoor food market, named the ‘Foodhallen’ will be opened in Amsterdam. The ‘Foodhallen’ will be located in the former tram depot ‘De Hallen’ and is based on foodcourts such as Mercado de San Miguel (Madrid) and Borough Market (London). ‘De Hallen’ is a building of 16.000 m² and beside the food market it will accommodate two restaurants, ‘Halte 3’ and ‘Meat West’, a movie theatre, a hotel, a library and several shops. Chong Chu, Tsibo Lin, Zing-Kyn Cheung and Rakish Gangapersad are the founders of the project and owners of the two restaurants.
This summer ‘Proeflokaal Bregje’ opens its doors at the Citymall Almere. This is the second establishment of the cozy grand-café chain ‘Proeflokaal Bregje’. The grand-café has a traditional atmosphere and a Dutch menu. Earlier this year we wrote about the opening of Hudson Bar & Kitchen in the Citymall as well. By opening ‘Proeflokaal Bregje’ the attractivity of this neighborhood in Almere will increase.
What do you get when you put ‘Gangs of New York’, ‘La Dolce Vita’ and ‘Ben-Hur’ together with roller coasters? Movie-park Cinecittà World, which is inspired on Cinecittà studios in Italy and the US, where over 3.000 movies and television shows are produced with which they won 38 Oscars. The park has 38 attractions including the World’s longest water coaster of 1,800 feet. Cinecittà World was build alongside of filmdom’s most legendary shooting lots just outside Rome and will be opened this Thursday, 24 July 2014.
The owners of the Faraday Café in Vancouver hope to restore non-digital, social interaction between people by creating a place without any digital connection. They went a step further than just not offering WiFi; social artist Julien Thomas and Hughes Condon Marler Architects (HCMA) have designed the first coffee shop that repels wireless signals. In the Faraday Café, you get disconnected the moment you step into the coffee bar. The café derives its name from the Faraday Cage, the material shield that has been used to block all signals. The Faraday Café offers artisanal coffees and will be the home of several events such as ‘drinks and discussions’ and meditation sessions.
The French government introduced a new law forcing ‘fait maison’ (home-made) where restaurants have to indicate whether they are only using home-made food. This means that they can use the mark of ‘fait maison’ when they are only using food which has not been processed or prepared before. The restaurants can be recognized by the logo of a frying pan with a little roof on top. The French government is using ‘fait maison’ to improve the state of their traditional restaurant scene.
Perfect service throughout the whole staff is the most hospitable gesture you can make to your guest. No grand gestures but simply a team like a well-oiled machine.
In this edition of “small hospitable gestures” we focus on gestures in hotels, where we separate gestures to the business guest and leisure guest. Download the full version here.
Event organization ID&T offers free tap water to visitors of several of its festivals. The goal is to provide all ID&T events with free water on a short term. The festival ‘Welcome to the future’, 26 July, already has special water bars were visitors can fill up their water bags and cups. The video shows that ID&T wants free water for everyone, especially on their festivals.
We discussed which products show up the most on social media, in all kind of shapes, flavours and colours, this year. The first product that read more
We have been sharing inspiration on our website since 2007, inspiration that we find in the hospitality industry or by online spotting of what our read more
We have been sharing inspiration on our website since 2007, inspiration that we find in the hospitality industry or by online spotting of what our read more
Andrew Tanner designed a collection of plates that serve as art (Sillhoute Wall Plate). The plates are made in England from fine bone china material. The background of walls bring the plates alive with the cut out design. See the plates here.
Designers United from Greece made a new identity and packaging design for a new premium quality series of Greek extra virgin olive oil. 5 stands for quality in olive oil. See the new packaging here.
If you are planning to organize a Star Wars marathon en you need something to snack, try the life sized stormtrooper. Amanda Oakleaf Cakes created a 6 feet and 300 pounds life sized dessert. Visitors of the Sci-Fi conference in Boston were lucky to eat the stormtrooper. It took almost 300 persons to finish the trooper. See the dessert here.
Lucie Thibault and Thomas Zimmerman, of the French Zimd And Zou created, with a wink to the future, a composition of paper called “The Future of Food”. This is specially designed and created as part of the Icon magazine cover. Creative and colorful!
Children from a primary school in the Dutch village Berkel en Rodenrijs opened their own shop, the ‘Leerwinkel’ In this shop they sell different biological and home-made products. In this way they can learn all the different aspects of running a ‘real’ business.
A Chinese entrepreneur An Yanshi quitted his job to produce world’s most expensive tea. The tea plant will grow in panda muck which he bought from a panda breeding centre. The tea will cost around 35.000 dollar per 500 grams. Despite the tea is yet untested he is thinking of expanding.
Photographer Carl Kleiner and stylist Evelina Kleiner created the book for IKEA (which we had previously written about) captured the ingredients in a very graphic way in a picture. Now they are busy with another project for IKEA: cooking attributes and crockery, again from a bird flight perspective. Minimalism at its finest. See the cooking attributes and crockery in bird flight here.
Research of the National Literacy Trust shows that one of three children in the UK does not own a book. Following this, McDonalds England is replacing books for Happy Meal toys. From now till the 7th of February a Happy Meal will include a book of Michael Morpurgo, which is called Mudpuddle Farm.
Lay’s is organizing an action “Maak de Smaak” (Dutch for Make the Tase) in the Netherlands, after the success in 2010. New is that consumers can “Battle” online to help determine making three finals in August. The winning taste will be for sale as a limited edition for one year, beginning from November 2012.
In china they have build a 3 star, 170,000 square foot, 30 story, fully sustainable hotel in only 15 days. See the movie for the total building process. Is this the future of (hotel) architecture?
ABSOLUT Vodka has teamed up with the platform The Hidden World. This is a co-creation project for (aspiring) artists by artists and anyone who appreciates creativity and artistic skills. Now ABSOLUT Vodka allows us to share and reveal the creative paths that lead us to breathtaking images, music and fashion. Every 3 months ABSOLUTE will follow a new ‘creative’, starting with the Dutch top designer Ilja Visser.
Update 10 April: Behind the scenes in the hidden world of Flore Zoé
Dille & Kamille sells a baking form of a house where three separate forms after baking can be glued together with icing. This creates a cottage with a notch that can be hanged on the edge of a cup. Nice to serve this next to a cup of coffee. See the cookie here.
IKEA created a commercial to demonstrate how kitchen tools can be used. They also released an app that tells how the recipes must be made and how long you have to workout to eat a cake without gaining weight. There is also a site where you can participate to a sport contest. The person who burned the most calories wins kitchen tools. Watch the movie.
Rotterdam creates the first rooftop farm in the area. It is located on the roof of an office complex at the Schiekade. The walking bridge to the farm land is financed by crowdfunding. See the rooftop farm here.
Vending machines in Japan are dispensing besides beer also WIFI. The free WIFI signal is available to use for everybody within 50 meters of the vending machine.
The burger restaurant Wimpy in South Africa developed braille burgers that are topped with sesame seeds. They did that together with the Institute for the Blind, to promote the launch of the menu in braille. The 15 braille burgers that were baked for this occasion generated free publicity to an estimated 800.000 sight disabled people throughout the country.
This combination from healthy and tasty will be a welcome addition to your dessert. See the website from Culy for the recipe of this chocolate-kiwi lollipop.
During an Electronic Consumers Show CES in Las Vegas, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said that it’s likely that we use Android software devices in the future for home appliances. Some companies are already using Android in their refrigerators.
Designer Damian O’Sullivan, designed a mug that “wakes up”.
When the Morning Mug is still cold it displays a sleeping face. Once you put hot coffee or tea in the mug it slowly wakes up with a big smile. Given the fact that most people wake up grumpy, the Morning Mug helps to start their day in a cheerful way.
The French fastfood chain Quick is known for the burgers they sell inspired by movies. They designed three burgers to celebrate the new Star Wars movie Phantom Menace 3D that will be released in France in February. There is the Jedi Burger (inspired by the Star Wars Characters Joda), the Dark Vador (French for Darth Vader) and the Dark Burger. The burgers are for sale in France from 31 January.
Bookstore Type in Toronto made an impressive stop-motion video The Joy of Books, where books are dancing.
The Dutch design studio Tjep, revisited several elements for the restaurant Fabbrica in Bergen. People want more authenticity these days, so they designed cozy and elevated dining pods that transports us back to a time of forts and tree houses. See the dining pods here.
In more and more locations around the world, new modern designer bakeries are opening. The reason for this is bakeries do not want to be seen as a simple bakery with a simple selection of products. Instead, they want to add more value to the experience in a bakery, and they do so by creating a modern and designer like interior, which creates a whole new experience and feel to the businesses.
Wordvilt (dutch) is wordfeud at coasters. Mobiles on the side, coasters on the table!
Update: Unfortunately Wordvilt is not available anymore.
We, here in Europe, are amazed of what Americans do with their favorite bacontaste. We picked 2 examples of the list from Culy we think that the Dutch people would understand; the bacon lollipop and bacon coffeebeans. But bacon toothpaste????? We do love the remix at the end of the story.
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