Gebroeders Hartering: family-style or over-sharing?
In the first edition of the Foodie Girls Dining Club, we tested out two-starred &samhoud places’ foam and fuss. For the second edition, we decided to take it right back down to earth: Gebroeders Hartering has blackboards instead of menus, old wooden décor instead of starched minimalism, and not a gold high-top trainer in sight. What Gebr. Hartering and Samhoud do have in common, however, is their multi-course tasting menu. And that’s why we were there with each other – we needed strong-stomached eating buddies, who wouldn’t fall at the fourth-course hurdle.
While we pondered whether to go for six courses at €50 or nine at €75, we lubricated decision-making with a glass of sparkling rosé. Eventually, we wimped out and went for the six – I had a wedding to attend the next day, and my chef friend was running the Dam tot Damloop – but not before we managed to switch up the main dish so that we got to taste the sensational-looking rib of beef that was doing its rounds of the room, the chef presenting it to us like a pedigree in a dog show.
The menu kicked off with a sharing plate of thinly sliced raw cod with oil of leek ash and watercress. The oil tasted faintly citrusy and a little composty – presumably from the leek ash, which formed dark shards in the dressing. I mopped it up with my bread.
Next up came pig’s liver, which we all assumed would be rather more solid and pâté-like. Instead, it formed a giant rust-coloured smear on the plate, which looked like something my friends’ babies get up to in their nappies. Needless to say, there was plenty left over, and it wasn’t just because we were being polite about the whole sharing plate thing. The pickled root vegetables and macadamia nuts it was served with brought a welcome crunch and contrasting sourness – but they weren’t enough to make up for the nappy effect. (Sorry to bring that up again.)
Mussels with parsley sauce were distinctly more palatable, and tastier still was our next course of duck breast with buttery mash, chanterelles and a light jus. But, again, in both cases we were sharing one dish between four – for no apparent reason. At this point, Scary French Lady (who you can count on to speak her mind in such situations) asked whether it was really necessary for the rest of dinner to be a sharing affair, and whether we couldn’t just have a plate to ourselves? It wasn’t tapas, after all! And much as I like sharing (in all senses of the word – you should see my Facebook profile), I was inclined to agree with her…
But we capitulated on the beautiful rib of beef, which the waiter told us came on rustic wooden boards if we shared (as opposed to regular plates if we didn’t), and the medium-rare meat piled atop roasted lemons and thyme was indeed worth the over-sharing element.
That being said, there are clear side effects of sharing dishes, and they differ from person to person – or rather from personality to personality. For polite introverts, sharing means holding back, graciously leaving morsels on the plate, not wishing to deprive their dining companions of the best bits and certainly not wanting to be the first to finish the dish. In short: it means they go hungry. For the greedy extroverts like me, on the other hand, sharing means that I’m almost literally taking food out of the mouths of my friends. So eager am I to get stuck in that I pay little heed to anyone else’s eating speed, let alone to simple decorum. Unless I count the number of slices of meat, divvy up the quantity of mussels or draw a line down the middle of the plate, it’s all over for my rival. Umm – friend – I mean.
So it’s little surprise then, that by the time I’d snapped my way through the caramel on the top of the crème brûlée, I was so full that I could barely finish it, let alone tell you if it was any good or not. And (shock of all horrors!) I left most of my dessert wine, so nauseous from over-eating was I feeling by this point. As for my foodie girlfriends, they all felt positively sprightly – which only goes to show that I probably ate at least half of the food that was rightfully theirs.
“Gebroeders” means brothers in Dutch, and perhaps the Hartering brothers were just trying to create a family atmosphere with all this sharing business. If so, the Hamptons are clearly nothing like the Harterings: portion control has to be exercised by the household cook, or mealtimes quickly descend into an eating competition. What do you think: is sharing caring? Or is family-style eating just over-sharing?
