[Barbara Zonzin]

Saturday 18^th May is the worldwide Restaurant Day.  This festival takes place four times a year and invites everyone to open his/her own pop-up restaurant for the day. In the Netherlands, Restaurant Day has also been picked up and dozens of temporary restaurants will pop up in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Amersfoort, Soest, Breda, and all over the Netherlands. The initiative started in Helsinki in 2011 and is a tribute to good food, spontaneity and the liveliness of the city.

Restaurant Day allows everyone to try out a restaurant concept during one day. In Amsterdam, there are already ten hobby chefs who will organize a pop-up restaurant, coffee bar, picnic or barbecue dinner. Utrecht will be six restaurants richer for the occasion. During this day, the pop-up chefs will show their skills to create delicious menus in surprising settings. Earlier editions in the Netherlands had, among others, an anti-hangover breakfast in pharmacist’s style, a spicy nacho bar with live music, tapas by Spanish chefs, and Mexican pinchos served in sombreros of guests.

This Restaurant Day will offer seasonal dishes, American cakes, Columbian gastronomy, homemade bonbons, while queuing in diverse living rooms, a picturesque courtyard, a camper in a park and on a houseboat in the river Amstel.

Restaurant Day takes place four times a year. Hobby chefs worldwide enter their restaurant for a day on www.restaurantday.org, with description, location and opening hours. Visitors can view the initiatives through the website and the free Restaurant Day app. On 18^th May, the pop-restaurants are open for business.

Restaurant Day was founded in May 2011 in the Finnish capital Helsinki. Each edition has about 700 pop-up restaurants worldwide and the first Dutch edition took place in 2012 in Amsterdam.

More information on Facebook and www.restaurantday.org.