Tuesday morning a dream came true for many employees of Hotel Okura Amsterdam: Ciel Bleu Restaurant is awarded a second Michelin star! At nine in the morning we all received a wake up call with the good news, a unique way to start the day. After hearing the great news the entire team went to the hotel as soon as possible where we were welcomed in a completely cheerful decorated kitchen. We opened the Champaign and toasted to celebrate this unbelievable achievement.

Nobody dared to dream that Michelin would award Ciel Bleu a second Michelin star so soon. In 2007 many renovations were conducted on the 23^rd floor of Hotel Okura Amsterdam. A new Champaign & Cocktail bar called Twenty Third has been realised, and the Ciel Bleu Restaurant is completely restyled. In September we opened the new restaurant, and now three months later we already received a second Michelin star. We also invested this year in a new restaurant team under the supervision of Pasquinel Kolk and Noël Vanwittenbergh, so everything happened very fast.

Of course we are very proud of this award for all the undertaken steps last year. Tuesday has been an amazing and busy day. There was a lot of media attention and we still receive messages of congratulation. The second Michelin star indicates that we went into the right direction with Ciel Bleu, it inspires us to go even further and to keep developing continuously. We will keep learning and growing, individually and of course as a team.

On behalf of the entire Ciel Bleu team:
Onno Kokmeijer