Cenc feels like Bar Parry's big sister: the same relaxed approach, but with just a little more room for food that seeks out the sea. The menu leans toward fish, seafood and shellfish and keeps the pace fast: you can take one dish and move on, but just as easily keep stacking up until suddenly you do "just dine" without having planned ahead.
What makes it distinctive is in the choices. Not an endless menu, but dishes that fit logically next to each other: something salty, something fatty, something fresh, something crunchy. Think of that category of snacks you actually come for, egg mayo with shrimp, fish fritters, shrimp heads with aioli, and then on to a plate that makes the evening serious: mussels with green pepper, petongles with citrus-garlic butter, or pasta with anchovies and lemon. It's "small" on paper, but big in how quickly your table fills up.
The wine is not an afterthought and you notice that right away. Cenc pours a selection (natural and conventional) through De Wijnwinkel, and that makes the choice simple: you pick a glass that suits the cuisine, without a whole sommelier ritual surrounding it. The result is exactly what you want with this kind of food: glass empty, next glass, next bite.
You don't come here for a long explanation, but for a table that keeps replenishing itself.
The atmosphere follows that logic: open enough to walk in, sharp enough to come back. You see the kitchen working, you sense there is routine in the service, and the whole thing has that Parry/Balthazar DNA: not formal, but precise. Cenc is the kind of place where you agree "for one" and end up with a small procession of plates and a bottle suddenly running out - because the menu provokes it, not because someone talked you into it.