I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time. — Nayyirah Waheed — Monday July 28th — —

“What art does — maybe what it does most completely — is tell us, make us feel that what we think we know, we don’t. There are whole worlds around us that we’ve never glimpsed.” Greil Marcus — Monday July 28th — —

The idea is to die young as late as possible. — Ashley Montagu — Monday July 28th — —

Nacional

It is a really good year for one of Amsterdam‘s more visible entrepreneurs: Casper Reinders. After opening a beautiful new gallery earlier this year, this month he opened yet another restaurant, his tenth, named Nacional. The bistro style restaurant, which is a collaborative effort of Reinders and partners Dobson and Uzcudun, aims to give new élan to one of the more sleazy squares of Amsterdam’s city center, the Leidseplein, offering French cuisine with a modern New York-twist. Nacional’s spacious interior, somewhat in line with the new Libertine Gallery, shows an eclectic mix of vintage, art and design, among which is a tremendous huge specimen of Piet Parra’s beautiful Cold figure, which was released by CASE STUDYO  in miniature size last month. The restaurant can handle as many as 140 guests with its surface of 460 m², making Nacional a little piece of New York right in the middle of Amsterdam.

Every item in this spacious restaurant has been meticulously crafted, from the 200 years old wooden floor to the original French tiles and lamps.

Casper Reinders started his career with Café Fortuyn in 1996, after which he opened restaurants, NOA and Moko. In 2003 he stepped over to nightlife and the now famous club Jimmy Woo was opened. Two years later the cafe Vuong saw light. In 2009 Reinders opened Bocinq, a beautiful French-Arabic fusion lounge-restaurant. Three years ago he opened Lion Noir, again with French cuisine after which bar Ludwig II was opened, followed by Rose’s Cantina in 2012, CHOW in 2013 and this year the restaurant Nghia ‘N Nghia under the wings of the same restaurants. Then followed his Libertine Gallery and now Nacional: we can’t wait (and imagine) what the future will bring to the Reinders Universe, but we are sure there’s more to come.

We also particularly like the tasteful graphic design in and around the restaurant, done by …,Staat.

Photography by: De Fotomeisjes.

For more information and for a reservation see here.