A bad meal is always a little tragedy. And the last meal I had on the site that now houses the restaurant I'm reviewing today, was a colossal vegan tragedy. The restaurant has since closed, and
Ruysdaelstraat 48 now has a new resident, Elysianne, a fine dining restaurant offering Cajun/Creole cuisine.
Owner of Elysianne is Andrew Vogt, who has also taken on the role of restaurant manager, and he's an experienced DJ as well, with 20 years of experience under his belt. In charge of the food is executive chef Matt Pace. My New York readers might remember him from Cafe Booqoo (2017-2018). Elysianne originated from De Kleine Appel, a NYC-inspired gastropub, which opened during the pandemic in May 2021 and ran until April 2024.

Following a period of soft-opening, Elysianne is now open for business from Thursday till Saturday. There are two seatings, one at 18.00 and one at 21.00, and there's a set 6-course tasting menu for €90.
Starting this spring they will offer a vegetarian menu every last week of the month. All diners are served the same courses at the same time (so don't arrive late!) and each course comes with an introduction by chef Pace. There's a wine pairing available for €60, but you can also select a bottle from their wine list, which is decent but could do with some attention.

The menu is well-designed and features creative riffs on classic Cajun and Creole dishes, like Oyster Rockefeller. This dish was invented in New Orleans in the late 19th century and named after the richest man in the world at the time, John D. Rockefeller.
Yes, I hear you thinking, but luckily musk and oysters are not an ideal combination in any respect, so I doubt we'll be seeing Oysters Musk on menus anytime soon. At Elysianne, the oyster is charbroiled and served in an edible shell made with seaweed, together with some bacon jam and a herb and Parmesan foam. A satisfying bite, as was the next course "Crab Boil" potato. This dish is inspired by a traditional New Orleans seafood boil. In a seafood boil the potato soaks up all the rich juices, here the potato was cooked in juices too, but transformed into an elegant potato terrine topped with some caviar and apple butter, served in a silky smoked burrata sauce with a drizzle of pumpkin oil. The potato had taken on a lovely flavour and was slightly crisp on the top, with layers of tender potato underneath, and the caviar was not just there for show, its natural saltiness brightened all the other ingredients.

Next up was "Blackened Redfish" with pickled red cabbage, Creole mustard sauce, fried capers, Jalapeño and dill jelly, and bean sprouts. Blackening is a classic Cajun cooking technique with a spice blend coating, black referring to seasoning being blackened not burned. A typical blackened spice blend will include paprika, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, black pepper, onion powder, and sometimes dried herbs such as oregano or thyme. The blackened seasoning had given the redfish a spicy and crisp exterior that was packed with flavour, with nice and tender meat on the inside.
Together with the other ingredients, the dish offered a nice interplay of sweet, sour and spicy flavours, though the Creole mustard sauce did not deliver the sharp kick I was hoping for.

Duck Gumbo followed, a dish that instantly set my tastebuds on high alert. Gumbo is perhaps to most iconic staple in Creole/ Cajun cuisine and this stew can be made with a range of ingredients (seafood, meat or vegetables). This stew unites a medley of techniques and traditions. For example the roux, which is the base of a gumbo. A Creole roux is made the French way with flour and butter. A traditional Cajun-style roux though, like used in this dish, is made with lard, or in this case duck fat. Another traditional ingredient used to thicken the sauce of the gumbo is dried sassafras leaves powder. I greedily tucked into a gorgeous plate of food. The duck (lightly smoked) was juicy and tender and served over black rice with a nice "al dente" texture. On top of the duck was some pickled okra; gumbo is after all also a word for okra. But the sauce. Think dark and sultry with a rich texture and attractive notes of chocolate and orange, but also an explicitly good seasoning with 8-year aged Tabasco, that somehow awakened all the flavours but also delivered a fiery but balanced kick in the finish.

After a firework like this, dessert can sometimes be an anticlimax, but not today.
Bouille, a traditional Cajun custard, was transformed into an elegant dessert, the custard made with buttermilk, and served with some delicious smoked pecans and preserved honeysuckle berries and blackberries, and honey cress. But even better was a sophisticated remake of a Banana Foster dessert, which originated in a restaurant called Brennan's in New Orleans. A banana mousse (doughnut-shaped), sprinkled with some jalapeño powder, came with a pistachio and black sesame sable biscuit underneath, and a luscious smoked rum Crème Anglaise. The perfect end to this meal.
With his playful style of cooking, chef Matt Pace delivers food that grabs you from the start, but also a meal that satisfies the body and soul. This is a chef who cooks with respect for tradition and comfortably and skillfully reinvents Cajun/Creole classics making them deliciously different. This restaurant is the best thing that has happened to Amsterdam in a long time.