Nineties nostalgia: alpine fondue in the lowlands

Fondue may more usually be associated with the eighties, but in my case it reminds me of 1991: my first (and last) skiing holiday with my entire family. It’s one of those cases in which I can’t figure out whether I remember the photograph or the experience itself. Either way, I can picture myself, aged 11 (the turquoise headband was particularly fetching), and my two brothers, aged 24 and 26, sitting around a red-and-white-checked tablecloth, rosy-cheeked and hungry after a morning’s skiing in the Swiss Alps. As we dipped into a steaming cauldron of pungent cheese, my Dad threatened us with the bill if we dropped our bread in by accident. As I walked into Café Bern, rich with the familiar smell of the winters of my childhood, I realised that this was the first time I would eat fondue outside of the Alps. And how less alpine than the four-metre sub-sea level of the Nieuwmarkt. The owners of Café Bern had, however, managed to re-create some of the ambience of the alpine stubli; their diminutive menu focused on what they do well: fondue, salads, simple house wine. I appreciated their unassuming, honestly-priced offering. We ordered bean salad, a spicy salad with cucumber, chilli and coriander, and a green salad with a garlic dressing. Hot on their heels came our bubbling creamy lava of cheese and wine, with baskets of bread that magically replenished themselves throughout the evening. Despite the fact that (between the six of us) we polished off what looked like a small lake of cheese, we still had room for dessert. These constituted the least satisfying aspect of the meal, but there was something pleasingly retro about the maraschino cherry that topped my chocolate mousse with chantilly.

One of my fellow fondue-dippers, a feisty Italian gent, was curious to know how I would review Café Bern. Like many men, he was more interested in quantity than quality (‘but how many stars is it going to get?’) and looked slightly affronted when I said that I was erring towards four stars for our simple mountain meal. ‘What if people come to Amsterdam, visit the restaurant, and want steak or salmon?’ he asked, incredulously. ‘They would hardly be satisfied with fondue!’ Perhaps he is right. And so, dear reader, I implore you to judge a restaurant by its own yardstick, and not that of the Michelin-starred establishment down the road. Café Bern is a fondue restaurant, not a bistro, and for €25 a head, you can’t say fairer than freely-flowing house red, simple salads, retro desserts and as much cheese as you can shake a bread-clad stick at.