Tested: the promising kitchen of Nebo in Antwerp
Recent Jan Scheidtweiler at the table at Nebo in Antwerp: looking for heaven with chef Dimitri De Koninck.
Finally a restaurant where we can eat à la carte! No sharing dishes, no mandatory menu in four, five or six courses, but food you feel like: why not deploy more chefs?
Nebo, recently opened at the Nieuw Zuid in Antwerp, dares to let everyone choose from a card with six bets and six bets. Chef Dimitri de Koninck shows extra ambition by thinking little too: colleagues imitate him.
However new Nebo is, it already gives a strong impression.
Nebo is located on Panamarenko Square, a neighborhood with many new, stylish apartments, but few restaurants. The compact spaceship ‘Bing 2’ floats above the square, a piece of Panamarenko in the city. Also inside, in the sparsely furnished room, it is good to even look upwards. Copper hoops hanging from the ceiling as stylized references to the restaurant name: Nebo means heaven in Croatian. De Koninck has worked in Croatia and in Flemish restaurants such as De Eiken in Oostmalle and Zilte in Antwerp. He learned the most in the moon, the well-known restaurant that his parents ran in Antwerp until 2012.
Can Nebo realize his ambition in the board? That works wonderfully. De Koninck’s dishes have a classic side due to their focus on luxury products – tuna, foie gras, summer roe. The elaboration, with attention to fresh acids and exotic seasonings, is completely 2021: horseradish brings extra punch in a ceviche of hamachi (27 euros). Smoked eel is bathed in the softness of potato cream and young leeks (28 euros).
The chef seems to borrow the finesse of Japanese cuisine to give dishes more intensity. It goes well with sea bass (38 euros) with dashi, a broth based on dried tuna. Desserts are a disappointment in gourmet restaurants, but that is not the case here. Both a millefeuille with fig and vanilla ice cream (15 euros) and a round dessert peach and raspberry (15 euros) are delicately elaborated.
However new Nebo is, it already gives a strong impression. In the hall, Jonathan and friend Michelle – the sommelier – do an equally good job: heaven is not far away.
True
Nebo, Panamarenkoplein 5, 2000 Antwerp
Phone number 03/272.45.00, restaurantnebo.be
Closed Sunday and Monday.
account
416.50 euros for four.
Wine
A menu full of European quality wines. Reasonable prices: The great Darscho from the Austrian domain Velich costs 55 euros, 1.6 times the consumer price.
Decibel
Nebo is not a beautiful restaurant, although it is not whisper-quiet with its solid soundtrack and minimalist design: an average of 65 dB.
I will come back
Very gladly: this is one of the most promising newcomers in Antwerp in 2021.