Lode & Stijn Nonchalant without laissez-faire

It's a bit like being a guest of your older sibling's cool friends. Since its opening in 2016, the restaurant Lode & Stijn on Lausitzer Straße has been the talk of the town. This is mainly due to the flavourful cuisine the two Dutch chefs, Lode van Zuylen and Stijn Remi, serve here.

In addition to the extremely friendly and relaxed service, which clearly enjoys its job, we are highly taken with the casual yet sophisticated ambience and the music selection from Jimi Hendrix to Sixto Rodríguez. The atmosphere at Lode & Stijn is sober, modern, elegant and straightforward, with lots of wood, but by no means uncomfortable. The focus is on what's on the table. And that is truly fantastic. Modern, minimalist, with a Scandinavian touch, yet rich and surprising in flavour.

Everything seems effortless and unagitated. Lode & Stijn manages this balancing act between nonchalance without seeming laissez-faire, creating a relaxed atmosphere and approachable plates without ever lacking seriousness.

The menu at Lode & Stijn, including its carefully handcrafted ingredients, combines experience, creativity and the best products from the region and Europe. It is based on the season's diversity and offers six to seven fixed courses, as well as a wine or non-alcoholic accompaniment curated by sommelier Ole Ortmann.

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We drink many natural wines tonight, but he is by no means a hardliner, Ole confesses. Only his principles are based on Lode and Stijn's understanding of the product, which is why he prefers the term "living wines". With a lot of expertise and just as much enthusiasm, Ole contributes himself and the wines he has selected, completing our excellent dinner experience.

And so we start with a vintner's sparkling wine from the "young wild one" Moritz Kissinger, who spent some time in Champagne to see precisely how things work with champagne. The fine sparkling wine tastes accordingly in the glass and accompanies the fresh amuse of mushroom granité with chive oil and the freshest radishes straight from the field. We are officially ringing in spring.

The amuse in two stages is given a hearty twist with the famous bitterballen with beef filling and beef or potato tartare with pistachio dressing and deep-fried capers on toasted sourdough bread, showing that restraint is just one option on the flavour spectrum at Lode & Stijn. We are welcome to use our hands, the friendly service emphasises, and we will do so more often during the evening.

Lode's sourdough bread with wild garlic butter knows how to delight, as does the wild Watt oyster in tempura batter with oyster cream on the side, cumquat ice cream and white asparagus and linseed on top. The veggie version with Salsify is just as creamy, crunchy, a bit sloppy and crispy - an excellent play of textures with lots of flavour. Not the last time the finger wanders into the sauce to lick up the last of the delicate cream.

Incidentally, just like the sophisticated wine accompaniment, we are delighted by the ingenious non-alcoholic accompaniment of kombuchas, shrubs, kefir and juices, which nestle quite wonderfully with the aromatics of the various courses. The carrot course deserves special mention at this point.

Coming from the moor, the basic product already convinces with its density and a concentrated carrot aroma of freshness and acidity. After being cooked over charcoal on the hibachi grill, it is then sliced like sashimi, perfected with pickled ginger, pistachios and lots of wild herbs, each herb contributing its own flavour to the fabulous carrot dish.

All those blossoms to make use of not only create a beautiful-looking plate. The dense flavour and the tenderness of the carrot amaze us and make us go into raptures - a star dish!

Another highlight among all the highlights of this evening, apart from the super dry pear champagne Poire Gran Cru from three-hundred-year-old trees in Normandy, is without question the Tarte au Citron by Hanne, who is joining the team at Lode & Stijn for three months. Otherwise, she works at Coda, and you can tell that from the dessert.

A perfectly balanced lemon ganache under delicate meringue is complemented by bergamot and aniseed. Not only does it look gorgeous, but it tastes like an airy, citrusy cloud, given plenty of complexity thanks to the preserved lemon on top.

Speaking of complexity, the chocolate ice cream also dares to emphasise the bitter side of chocolate and is insanely creamy simultaneously. Especially in combination with the creamy stracciatella ice cream, some cayenne pepper and cardamom, the dessert becomes, in a way, a child's chocolate ice cream for grownups. How cool and crafty can you be, Lode & Stijn?

Ronja C. Kolls

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