Franzen

Jesse Franzen's solo debut in Oud-Zuid, French-Mediterranean cooking, dry-aged beef and a Piemonte-heavy wine list.

Jesse Franzen grew up around a kitchen pass, started cooking at sixteen, and wanted his own address before turning thirty. He got there in August 2025, taking over a corner building on Johannes Verhulststraat with his father's old restaurant name and building something he calls a living room for the neighborhood. The résumé backing him up is real: two-starred Chapeau, then Ron Gastrobar and a stretch at Lars Amsterdam, where he helped the kitchen earn its Michelin star. The food splits into small plates and full courses: raw tuna with dill and horseradish, red mullet a la plancha with octopus escabeche, poulet jaune off the grill with chanterelles, and dry-aged rib cuts carved to order and priced by the hundred grams. The wine list leans hard into Piemonte and rewards a long dinner. Service starts early, bites and aperitifs from four, kitchen from half past five, lunch on Wednesdays through Saturdays. It reads like an old-school French bistro that grew up watching modern Amsterdam kitchens, confident rather than showy, and exactly the kind of solo debut worth watching closely.

Lunch Wed-Sat 12:00-14:30, dinner Tue-Sat from 17:30, bar and bites from 16:00. Closed Sunday and Monday. No online booking, call or email ahead for weekend tables.

Photo: Restaurant Franzen