Slow food & rapid change
It’s clear: over the past months we have changed the way we cook and the way we work. What inspired this change?
Like for many of us, the pandemic took SYR by total surprise. And this surprise brought rapid change to our little restaurant, along with plenty of time to reevaluate what we are doing and where we want to go as a restaurant. We realized it was time to refocus; time for something fresh.
If we’ve learnt anything over the past few months it’s this: Life truly does revolve around good food and spending quality time with our loved ones. These slow, often intimate experiences, are the ones that give our lives flavour.
As many of us have come to realize over the past few months, the usual daily grind and the many demands upon our time, can lead us to easily forget this simple yet essential part of life. This is what motivated us to change our focus, the way we work and the way we look at food. At SYR we made a clear choice, to focus on quality over quantity in everything we do.
We have made it our mission to create space for slow experiences and slow food. This choice has radically changed the way we do business, for the better. We now intentionally make space and time for creativity in our kitchen. Our Chefs Menu is filled with seasonal ingredients and Arabic flavours. We have also started working with primarily organic produce and our kitchen is home to the likes of wild black fermented walnut and home-brewed blackberry cider. Midst all these exciting changes, we couldn’t leave our wines behind. As our culinary imagination expanded, so did our collection of natural wines. We’re now building a selection of fine and unique flavours, many of which are novel to the Netherlands.
It is not just our food identity that has evolved, but also the way we work as a team. SYR will always take a stand for making space for international culinary talent in Utrecht. What we missed in the past was focus. And without focus, even the best of intentions can fall short. Now, we feel we can do better. That is why we also used this unique time to find a better and more effective way to make a difference. We have since launched a new Apprenticeship program .and we are happy to announce that we have welcomed the first apprentice to our kitchen this summer (read more about this here).
Why all these changes? Because at SYR we want to create space for quality, the small life, slow culinary experiences and true flavour; so that even as time speeds up again, we can still find the time for amazing food and our loved ones.
