Watch my Vlog video here: https://youtu.be/fHCgXPu43VI
El Puente (Spanish) means: The Bridge.
“In a world where borders separate us, El Puente builds bridges to reconnect us”
– Berry Wijnen, owner of restaurant El Puente.
In today’s VLOG video: we spent a weekend in Eindhoven, a city in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands. On day two, me and my friend visited restaurant El Puente, located at the bridge a the Stratumseind 64 in Eindhoven. Restaurant El Puente takes you on a culinary world trip and I will take you with me on this culinary journey. The chef of El Puente is Joep Luykx.
We had an interview with Panny, restaurant manager at restaurant El Puente. Here’s her story:
When did El Puente open?
El Puente opened in December 2017.
The name El Puente
The name is Spanish and it’s inspired by the translation of it and that’s the bridge. First and foremost, because we’re located in between two bridges. The other meaning means, that we want to build a bridge towards different flavors of different countries, the ingredients of these countries, and influence that in our own dishes.
That’s also why we only have a surprise menu.
The surprise menu
The chef has built a trip to different countries, where we took those influences from and then we put them in our own dishes. It’s a whole international trip that we’re going to make.
We have a set menu that will be changed every month, so every month we will have different courses and we have three, four, five or six courses. Every day we will serve you the same menu, but the menu will change every month.
Allergies
The kitchen is very creative, I think one of the most creative kitchens in a place I have ever worked with. The most crazy things are not crazy for us. Things like different diets, that’s no problem for us.
Fine dining
I would say it’s fine dining with exclusive ingredients, turning them into something that’s very accessible for people. Also with the service, we tend to be friendly, correct, but still very accessible for people.
Interior
Berry thought about everything actually, like the tables high in the arches. If you’re sitting low, of course when you look out of the window, that’s very nice. If you put high tables, people still can look outside over the water, see all the green and see the sun for example. That makes it easier for people to have the feeling of inside-outside.
Describe El Puente in one word
I would say: charismatic. It has its own personality, the service has its own personality, the kitchen has its own personality, where every dish is linked to the creativeness of the chef. I would say, that’s the word.
For tonight, Panny brought the menu to us. She told us that El Puente would bring us on a surprise trip through the world. We were going to visit different countries with their surprise menu. The decision that we only had to make was, how many courses we would like. We could choose either three, four, five or six courses. If we didn’t want to have a surprise menu, we could always have a look at the menu, because they had their six courses written there, with all the ingredients and flavors on it. Panny asked us if we would like to see the menu or keep it a surprise and how many courses we would liked to have. That was easy, we wanted to keep it a surprise, because we love surprises and we chose four courses.
Panny told us that with the surprise menu, they would serve us matching wines. At every course, they would have a different type of wine that matches the flavors of the dish. They can serve full glasses, but they can also serve half glasses. Panny brought the wine list for us, that she put on the table. We took a look at the wine list and after we made our decision, Panny came back to us.
The kitchen is known for its fresh acidity, so that’s why we started nicely with a soft fresh wine. It’s a Pinot Bianco, also known as Weissburgunder, only then it often comes from Germany. This one comes from South Tyrol, Northern Italy.
We started with a small Amuse-Bouche, just to get our taste buds going. We had a crisp of nori, also known as seaweed, with a gel of sesame seeds and Ponzu, which is a combination between soy and citrus. The white creme is made of rose petals. Panny suggested eating it with our hands and just all at once. Everything underneath we were not supposed to eat.
As a side dish we had some Sourdough Bread that goes with beurre noisette butter, which means that the butter has been slightly toasted, so it gives the butter a nutty flavor, while there’s no nuts in it. We had fleur de sel and Spanish olive oil with it.
We started in Japan. It was actually a traditional French dish, but here at El Puente they gave it a Japanese twist. We had a Steak Tartare that goes with a creme of avocado and ice cream made of cabbage mixed with citrus. Around it a vinaigrette of Ponzu with a little bit of coriander.
It had a very surprising taste. It was refreshing, with a combination of sweet and sour tastes, crispy salad and cool ice. The tastes were in balance.
For the next wine, we stayed in Italy; Marche in Central Italy. The winery Garofoli is close to the sea, which causes the excess of the sea from the wind and little pieces of sea water to penetrate the grapes, which causes a little bit of the saltiness to go into the wine.
Our next course would also have the saltiness in the dish. They worked with bisque, their lobster soup and the main ingredient was also very salty oriented. That’s why they chose the Verdicchio from Italy, to serve with our second course.
We’ve got the Argentinian shrimp. Underneath we’ve got a salad of tomatoes, an egg cooked until sixty five degrees, a cream of artichokes and the sauce was bisque.
This dish was going to be very exciting. We tasted a crispy, salty piece of nori, very special. The shrimp felt very creamy in the mouth, butter creamy. I tasted the egg yolk combined with the white, salty sauce. The egg yolk had the same creaminess as the shrimp and it was delicious in combination with the sauce. It had saltiness and softness. The tomatoes were very juicy. In one bite, it was a very good combination and it felt like washing up the salty sea.
For our main course we were going to switch to a red wine. We were going to the North Western of Spain, to the region Toro. The wine is made of a hundred per cent Tinta de Toro, also known as Tempranillo. Tempranillo is known for its herbiness and spice. This wine has aged for six months in the French oak, so the spices really come through. It will be rich and full, with a little bit of vanilla, that will match the spices in the sauce of our third course.
The country of our main course was going to be Thailand. We had Entrecote with a sauce based on various Thai herbs. We had a flan of sweet potato with a creme of soy, also some bamboo and a crunch of puffed wild rice.
I tasted the Entrecote with the soy sauce. It was a sour soy sauce, mildly salty. Asian kitchen. A creamy sweet sauce with a creamy sweet potato. The broccoli tasted sour, sweet with a nutty crisp. It was a meat vegetable combination. The wine went well with the dish, but it tasted more spicy and deep than the dish itself.
You shouldn’t eat everything separately, but you had to eat it together. That ensures the explosion of the different flavors. The dish was composed based on all the tastes together.
Ratafia, France. Late harvest of the grapes to make the Champagne, hence the brown color. It has a slight sweetness.
Madeira, Portugal. Made from Tinta Negra Mole and the Bobal. A little bit of chocolate comes to the front, spiciness for the ice cream mainly and a little bit of nuts too.
The cheese from the bottom to the top: The first one is the Sainte-Maure, which is a French goat cheese. The second is the Pierre Robert, a triple cream cheese from France, the third one is a Fontina, which is a red cheese. The fourth one is a Boeren Overjarige kaas, which is a Dutch cheese and the last one is Lazuli, which is a Dutch cheese as well.
Flaó Brûlée, Spain. We’ve got the Flaó Brûlée at the bottom, on top of it, ice cream of Hierbas. The crisp is a Florentine cookie made of pecan nuts, compote from pineapple and olives, the gel is mandarin in combination with rosemary.
Compote: pumpkin in combination with ginger.
With the tea we had bonbons made of Bastogne and pure chocolate and a creme of Baileys.
The bonbons were caramel-like inside. Sweet. A very deep chocolate taste. A delicious Bastogne base. Delicious with tea.
We had a top experience at El Puente. The whole team was top! We recommend you to go to El Puente and let yourself be surprised with their surprise menu.
You can watch my VLOG video about El Puente here: https://youtu.be/fHCgXPu43VI
El Puente
Address: Stratumseind 64
5611 EV Eindhoven
The Netherlands
