Utrechtsedwarstafel - another two-hander. Igor Sens cooks and Hans Verbeek plies the customers with wine. There’s no menu, just a grid offering three, four or five courses, at a simple, medium or gourmet level; wine is included in the price. You pick your level (we choose medium), tell Igor if there is anything you prefer not to eat, and wait to be surprised. It’s like going to dinner at a friend’s, who just happens to be a heavenly cook and have a huge wine cellar.

Igor comes out to tell you what you’re going to be eating; Hans chats about the wine, tailor-making choices as you go along. Igor is a passionate cook, and Hans adores his wine. Sometimes this triggers healthy conflict. ‘Now look what he’s done,’ says Hans, bringing Sylvia a guinea-fowl terrine on a salad lightly dressed with truffles and young goats’ cheese. ‘Truffles and goats’ cheese. What am 1 to give you with that!’ He tries a Shingle Peak Sauvignon Blanc — it works. 1 get a fine Grand Cru Alsace Riesling with my lemon sole brandade.

‘This one’s a bit old-fashioned,’ says Igor, bringing me a robust dish of Aquitaine beef cooked with wine and mushrooms. Sylvia’s rouget (red mullet) with octopus and a bourride sauce is spicily sweet, with murmurs of cinnamon and aniseed. South African Cabernets, delicate Dutch puddings, perfumed Austrian dessert wines, Igor’s hand made chocolates, come in gentle succession. It’s all done without a glimmer of puff or pretence, in a relaxed, down-to-earth Amsterdam way.

Sylvia is not a person ever to admit she’s wrong. But next morning 1 overhear her on the phone to friends in Paris, her next port of call. It appears they’re coming to Amsterdam soon, and she’s recommending restaurants. She also gives them my number.