Rituals Cafe opens on the Spui: from coffee to Asian dinner

A cosmetics brand opening a restaurant may sound oblique, but Rituals Café feels less like a marketing ploy than you might expect. The café can be found on the first floor of House of Rituals on the Spui and runs on the same idea that the brand has been promulgating for years: living everyday moments consciously. Only now you eat here, too.

Behind the kitchen is Renaud Goigoux, whom Amsterdammers may know from Rouhi - a previous restaurant project that also ran in collaboration with Rituals. Goigoux is responsible for the dinner menu, and that is immediately the most surprising part of the café. Raymond Cloosterman, founder and CEO of Rituals Cosmetics, has literally brought the brand philosophy to the dining table with this café. The brand has now been around for more than 25 years and operates in more than 35 countries - this is the first time it has done anything from hospitality.

The café operates with three dayparts. Morning is for coffee: specialty coffees, quiet, no rush. Lunch is accessible - fresh classics, nothing you have to decipher. But most interesting is the evening. Goigoux serves an Asian-inspired dinner menu with a modern edge, including a chef's menu featuring sashimi of fish of the day with plum and shiso. In between is the golden-hour aperitivo moment, which is a fixture in the café's daily schedule. It's three very different moods under one roof, and that's quite an ambitious setup for a first attempt at hospitality.

Goigoux serves an Asian-inspired dinner menu with a modern edge, including a chef's menu featuring sashimi of fish of the day with plum and shiso.

The Spui has traditionally had cultural overtones - bookstores, the University of Amsterdam, brown bars that have been there for decades. Rituals Café may not fit seamlessly into that at first glance, but in terms of pace and atmosphere it fits in better than you would think based on the brand label. Whether the café will be seen as a serious catering venue in the long term, or mainly as an extension of the store next door, will become clear in the coming months. For now, Goigoux's sashimi is a good reason to give it a try.

READ ALSO

---

Subscribe to Amsterdam Magazine and receive 4 editions!

English-language Amsterdam Magazine is all about fun things to do, discovering new places and the city's tastemakers. From eating and drinking, art and culture, going out and entertainment, shopping and markets, neighborhoods & sights to...

---