A museum restaurant that you visit even if you don't go to the exhibition at all. That is the ambition of Café-Restaurant Sandberg, the new catering establishment in the Municipal Museum on Museum Square. Not a self-service cafeteria with a cold sandwich under a plastic cover, but a place with its own bakery, a bar, reading tables and a full restaurant. Five nights a week they serve dinner, which is anything but natural for a museum restaurant.
Behind the business are three entrepreneurs: Xander Waller, Siem Feijen and Anne Foekema. You may know them from Café Restaurant Metro in Noord, and they have brought that experience to Museumplein. Executive chef Rients de Jong is in the kitchen, the same chef who is also behind the stove at Metro. His approach is recognizable: international dishes, but with seasonal and local products as a basis. No tricks, just good cooking. Hospitality partner Vermaat is also involved in the project, and from the Stedelijk Museum itself, Margot Gerené is attached to the collaboration as business director.
The restaurant's name refers to Willem Sandberg, who led the Stedelijk from 1945 to 1963. Sandberg was a designer and typographer, but above all someone who believed that art was not just for a select few. The museum had to be of and for the city. That thought is also incorporated into the restaurant: the doors are open to museum visitors as well as ordinary local residents who just fancy a good breakfast or a quiet lunch at a reading table. The space has a bar, reading tables and a restaurant area, so you can go there for a coffee or for a multi-course dinner, whatever you want.
Five nights a week they serve dinner, which is anything but natural for a museum restaurant.
In fact, you don't even have to go into the museum itself. The restaurant is completely accessible without a museum ticket, which makes it a lot more approachable than many similar places. The historic buildings of the Stedelijk, with its famous ‘bathtub’ addition and classic main building, provide the backdrop. That's quite a nice spot for an ordinary Thursday afternoon.