Pop-ups are fun, but at some point you just want a permanent place. That moment is now here for Justin Grooten and Ciaran Patrick Naughter, the two faces behind Kamer. After several pop-ups together, they have opened their first permanent restaurant on Westerstraat in the Jordaan, in the spot where café de Parel sat for years.
Ciaran Patrick Naughter is 27 and of Irish descent, but in the kitchen you notice little of a specific national style. He cooks from the grill, using what the season offers, and letting ingredients speak for themselves as much as possible. The dishes are umami-driven: deep in flavor, but without a handful of spices over the top. Few extra flavorings, a lot of attention to the product itself. That requires good raw materials and a sure hand, and Naughter has that.
The space is small, and that's exactly the point. Room is intimate, casual, and it doesn't feel like a business trying to be bigger than it is. You share the table, you share the dishes, and the atmosphere is that of an evening at someone's house, but with better wine. Because the wine list here is as serious as the cuisine, with a pronounced focus on natural wines carefully selected to match the dishes. Not a wine list as an appendix, but as a full part of what Room wants to be.
The wine list here is as serious as the cuisine, which is exactly the point.
That Grooten and Naughter chose the Jordaan does not surprise. The neighborhood has a nose for businesses that do things just a little differently, and Kamer fits that bill. No big concept, no complicated story, just two people who know well what they want to make. The wine list here is as serious as the cuisine, and that's exactly the point. The building's previous occupant, Café de Parel, was a fixture there for many years. Whether Chamber becomes one depends on what's on the plate. But the ingredients for a good business are there.