Amsterdam can offer just about anything to a food lover. ARCA is an especially welcome addition, bringing a jovial atmosphere to fine dining and drinking in the city.
Gabled façades line a maze of canals – a canal ring so impressive it’s listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List – in Netherlands’ capital, lined by innumerable cafes, bars, and restaurants representing cuisines from around the world.
ARCA Amsterdam – which means ‘treasure chest’ in Portuguese – is just that. Opened in 2021 in the heart of the city, the restaurant was the first to introduce the colourful dishes of head chef Henrique Sá Pessoa to Europe outside of Lisbon with its Portuguese-Asian inspired menu. Here, you’ll find the best parts of fine-dining including a curated menu boasting unique flavour combinations for modern interpretations, and expert wine pairings, all coupled with a relaxed atmosphere to mirror the tranquil buzz of the surrounding city.
This summer, ARCA unveiled their new bar concept and drinks menu, one that plays into the creative ambience of the restaurant – and art’otel where the bar and restaurant is located – with its welcoming space and journey-like menu. Characterful, a little tongue-in-cheek, but all the while upholding an air of know-how, ARCA will leave you savouring every flavour.
The Lowdown
ARCA is one of two-Michelin-starred Portuguese chef Henrique Sá Pessoa’s ventures, following his Michelin-starred Alma in Lisbon and preceding JOIA in London. Like JOIA and Alma, ARCA honours Portugal’s seafood-focussed cuisine with fresh petiscos (Portuguese tapas) that intricately blend spices from Asian cuisines for a rejuvenating revivals of the classics.
ARCA takes over the ground floor of Amsterdam’s art’otel, near the port and a short walk from Amsterdam‘s shopping district. Standing six-floors of sculptural brickwork high, the old, art nouveau building impresses over the Open Havenfront, with just as much to offer inside. Signature Artist, Joel van Lieshout of Atelier Van Lieshout, designed the hotel and restaurant’s interiors, filling the space with abstract human sculptures that celebrate life in all its form, from the ‘Female on Bed’ that forms the bench in the hotel lobby to the ‘Family Lamp’, a father figure moving with his two children. Themes of life, death, and everything in between crop up around the space. As a result, guests of both art’otel and ARCA are immersed within an alchemy of colours, textures, artistic moods.
ARCA’s seating area is lightly more subdued than the rest of the hotel, with a dark colour palette that plays into the sleek, fine-dining quality of the dishes. Seductive, low lighting, to focus the attention on the long, open-kitchen where a flurry of chefs work to prepare the dishes. Around the other side of the kitchen, is ARCA’s brand new bar concept, where Atelier Van Lieshout‘s artistic themes seep into liquid-form with the Course of Life cocktail menu.
What To Order
Splash
Start with a seat at the oblong-shaped long bar with the bar staff serving seated guests on either side from a workspace in the middle. The energetic team will hand you a colourful stack of cards to read through in the place of a traditional menu; each card outlines a different signature cocktail that in turn represents a stage of life. Starting with Early Years (a fruitier take on the well-loved Paloma cocktail), the menu moves to between First Date, Schools Out, Honeymoon (a playful coconut and rum serve), to Lasting Memories (a stronger serve of port and cherry heering).
First Date
Much like a piece of art, each cocktail is developed to trigger the memory by using all the senses; colour, texture, and flavour each work to evoke those bittersweet tastes of nostalgia. Highlights include Splash, a garish blue martini-like serve featuring vodka, and uniquely sea lettuce and marine foam, to recreate the salty memories of a first dip in the ocean, and First Date, a short, strong bourbon cocktail topped with a popcorn foam alluding to a night spent at the cinema. No matter which you choose, “a spirited trip down memory lane” will be served.
After meandering between the years within a single hour at the bar, move across to ARCA. Traditionally, Portuguese cuisine is not known for its spices, rather, dishes rely on good-quality, fresh ingredients to sing their simple yet rich flavours. ARCA changes this by marrying the classics with Asian hero-ingredients. The seared scallops are drenched in a cumin pil-pil while the fresh tuna comes as a tataki decked with chilli and basil. Though, if there’s one thing on the menu that you must try, it’s the Cauliflower Tart dessert. An ambiguous addition to the ‘sweets’ section of the menu, it’s topped with peanut butter and green curry sorbet that results in a flavour palette that keeps expanding and developing in your mouth. There’s no doubt why it won the award for Dessert of the Year 2024 by the prestigious Gault & Millau awards.
While the sharing-style menu is fun, opt for the Coast to Coast tasting menu to step up the evening, which champions locally-caught Dutch seafood served in a Mediterranean style.
Who To Bring
No matter who you’re with – family or girlfriends – you’ll have fun at both ARCA and ARCA bar. Alternatively, use the Course of Life menu as a free-flowing, speed-dating to get to know a first (or second) date better.
The Dress Code
There’s no strict dress code, but avoid jeans and trainers nonetheless. Don’t pass up on this opportunity to dress up, even if just a little bit. Play into the art themes and get creative with patterns and print; ARCA is a fun space in the heart of an artistic city after all.
The To Do List
Alongside the cocktail menu, ARCA bar has launched a selection of bar snacks featuring all the Portuguese heroes from Pao Com Tomate and Bifana Sandwiches, to the hero Francesinha. Stop by for lunch before hopping on a boat a short-walk from the restaurant for a tour of the canals.
While you’re at art’otel Amsterdam, be sure to stop by the downstairs art gallery. It’s an expansive space, free to visit, featuring local artists in partnership with Amsterdam Street Art (so expect lots of graffiti-style paintings and edgy photography) with regularly changing exhibitions.
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