Now that Serre Restaurant – inspired by Ciel Bleu – is open for one and a half months and really starts to be discovered as a hotspot, I have a secret that most probably soon will be copied in a variety of quality-businesses: Serre’s Bentobox...

The bentobox in Japan is the same as the old fashioned lunchbox is for us. With a difference that the Japanese take much more time to enjoy their lunch and they eat much healthier than we do during lunch break! In the traditional wooden box you will always find sushi, rice with meat and/or fish, a bowl with fruit and something sweet. All together, such a lunch is a full meal that you can easily bring to work.

In Okura's traditional Japanese restaurant Yamazato the classical version of bento has been served for a long time. The menu is not only popular among guests from the land of the rising sun, but others as well. Call it a tasting of all kinds of delicacies.

For Serre Restaurant we have given it a modern, a western twist. If you order Serre's Bentobox, you’ll get a beautiful beech wooden box served by the team of Caroline. Once the cover comes off, the guests are amazed. What they see is a mosaic of dishes: small appetizers, a beautiful entrance, for example fish or shellfish, a warm main course, matching garnishes and vegetables in separate trays and a finger licking dessert. And the box differs on a daily basis, depending on the supply of the finest ingredients.

Culinary speaking, Serre's Bentobox is a already a breathtaking surprise. But at the same time the presentation is also very practical. People who don't have much time for an entire lunch do not have to spend longer than 50 minutes at the table. From the moment of entry untill checkout. Ideal if you consider that you had a full meal in such a short time, and that you ate enough for the rest of your working day.

Now we are very proud of the new Serre Restaurant, but I won’t skip my own Ciel Bleu on the 23rd floor of Okura Amsterdam. We also have our own box! Not like the Japanese lunchbox, but the Golden Box and the ‘Black Gold'. It sounds like a title from the Tintin-series, but this is Tintin in the land of gastronomy. You will find a dish of pasta à la Carbonara in the golden box - pasta of the charcoal makers. The craftsmen, who worked in the forest in former days, could not go home during lunchtime to eat. They made a fire in the woods where they cooked their pasta. It just took a few ingredients which could easily be preserved: bacon, some dried mushrooms and thick cream...

Our 'golden box' is – as you guessed – in line with our unique style: in the sealed golden box you will find the finest pasta, enriched with Pata Negra and truffle cream. Not with ordinary mushrooms stirred trough, but with winter truffle, better known as 'Black Gold'. And I must say, people are lyrical about this dish. Not only because of the presentation, but also because of the taste. Indeed, a golden taste ...

Come 'boxing ' with us as well!

With culinary regards, Onno kokmeijer and team