Saté van Keukencafé TOTT in the heart of Leeuwarden

Restaurant TOTT, located in Grote Hoogstraat in Leeuwarden, opened in 2015 offering delicious homemade, charcoal-grilled satay with a vision to serve good taste and quality food. TOTT's concept is mainly meat-based but there are many other options for people who don't want to eat meat as well such as vegetarian or vegan people.

The owner has a long history in hospitality, starting with washing dishes at the age of 14 to now owning his own restaurant in Leeuwarden. He got the inspiration for his satay restaurant from his trip to Thailand and Malaysia and the street food there.

We had the pleasure to interview the main chef and owner of TOTT, Andres de Boer.

Can you introduce yourself in a funny story, maybe in the life of like the restaurant business as being a chef and restaurant owner?

My name is Andres de Boer and I was born and raised in Friesland. I started working in hospitality when I was only 14, washing dishes, and now I’m 37. I only left

hospitality for one and a half years so hospitality has been the biggest part of my life, in many ways. In 2015 I got tired of working for others, so I thought, okay, let’s give it a try myself. And here we are six years later.

Where did you work before?

I was a bartender at Mango in Leeuwarden. Before that I was the manager of Dozo, one of the first sushi restaurants in the Leeuwarden. I was there for five years during my study Hospitality Management at the NHL Stenden, which I started in 2005. And before that, I was a bar keeper at Cafe de Prins.

What attracted you to hospitality in the first place?

I don't know. I really don't know. I just like working in hospitality, probably it has something to do with working with a lot of people, having a lot of contact with guests. One of my many passions is food.

Starting off, because you've been a long time in the hospitality industry? Was it always concerned with sustainability? Or is that like a new thing? In your opinion?

Sustainability in the hospitality industry is a new thing. At least sustainability has always been in hospitality, however, during the last three, four years it's getting more and more important. Entrepreneurs and staff is working on how to be more sustainable and thinking about it more than before.

Because you've worked in many different places, do you do things differently than them concerning being more sustainable?

No.

They all have the same kind of level of understanding it?

It depends on what kind of sustainability you're talking about.

Let's then start off with what does sustainability mean for you?

Thats a good question. For one person, sustainability is about thinking a lot about the environment, like using green electricity, like using LED lights instead of regular Energy Bulbs. For the other person, it's about food. Is my food locally produced? Am I getting my food from big factories from outside the Netherlands or inside the Netherlands? So there are many ways to think about sustainability at this moment. I think in general, it's always being top of mind on what you're doing and what you're using and care about everything you can do as an individual.

When you're cooking or when you're thinking about certain dishes in your menu, we've noticed that you're trying to become more vegetarian. Can you say a little bit about that?

Sure. Vegetarian, and vegan people are increasing by the day. And people are more and more conscious about what they're eating, where it's coming from. They want to eat less meat and consume more vegetables. As an entrepreneur, I want and need to serve those people as well. My concept is mainly meat based with the focus on (chicken) saté. Saté is meat on a skewer for 99.9% of the people. Thankfully, there are other ways to serve the people that don't want to eat meat.

Exactly. And when the recipe is not necessarily sustainable, do they still like to eat it, or does it change the way you feel about it?

No, I will still eat it. Without knowing it myself, I stopped eating meat every day, which I used to do every day. I asked myself, it's just that we're going to eat less, and we're going to transform. And it's also something that is formed by a lot of people together. So I think that's the main thing. However, I don't mind if food is sustainable or not at this moment.

Is that because TOTT uses a lot of social media as well? Because you're very active on it.

I am trying to be very active on social media.

So you're going really with the time being like watching your menu, looking at what the customers wants? And looking to increase brand awareness and broaden your audience?

Sure, yeah.

What do you think is difficult about sustainability in the business? From food to like managing and the restaurants?

Most important thing is the taste of the product. If we're talking about vegan food or vegetarian food, I think there are still a lot of restaurants who are trying to serve vegetarian and vegan food (plant based food), which don't have a great taste; it's different than meat, of course. And that's what it's supposed to be because you don't want to eat meat. I believe that a lot of restaurants also underestimate the extra work it takes to create a vegan meal. Meat is easier to prepare and vegan food that taste well, takes more time and ingredients to get it prepared. Here at TOTT we want to give meals a good taste, instead of just a basic taste. The Asian Kitchen has a lot of flavors, which makes it more easy to give vegan food a better flavor.

And it's not necessarily bad to have meat in the main because meat is not always badly produced. It's all depends on where you get your ingredrients from. Can you tell us a little bit about that where you get those?

I get a lot of meat from our supplier. It's called Makro. It's a wholesale company.

Based in Holland or?

No, it is worldwide, I believe. Its called the Metro Group and it originates from a German company and it's a really big company.

They also try to improve their products with a lot of new vegan stuff and they're also changing so that makes it more easy for entrepreneurs to work with those products as well.

And do you buy food locally?

Yeah, I buy from local shops in Leeuwarden. I go to Thai Toko Saigon, for a lot of Asia products, which are, of course, important products. A lot of products that we use at TOTT are not available in bigger wholesale companies. I don't mind shopping locally, because the quality of the products is better.

So quality is definitely the most important for you?

Quality is the most important thing. Good quality and good pricing of the products.

Those two are the most important. What else is important to you?

Well, everything is important. Getting good and loyal customers is also important. everything combined is important, but it has to have a great taste as well, which is also important. So I can get really good quality, but if the taste is not good, then obviously I'm not going to serve it.

Yeah, exactly. And are you here when the place is running?

Most of the time.

What do you do then?

I'm working on the floor. Like serving people and making sure deliveries are prepared on time and doing logistics from the computer when people are ordering food for delivery at home. I also make the schedules for the two people that deliver our meals. And when it's really busy, we have one person driving a car for deliveries further away from the restaurant.

And can you tell us a little bit more about the people that do the delivery? Do you hire them or do they come from Thuisbezorgd?

No, I got my own staff. Mainly because I want to have a good experience at the door. I don't know who the people from UberEats or Thuisbezorgd are and I don't know what he's doing with the food; How would they treat the food during the bike ride? Is he going the quick way with a lot of bumpy roads or would they bike really slow? I know how my people work; they are trying to serve the best of the best. And also when people order food, a similar face will deliver it.

Yeah that's important customer service to you and feeling welcomed. What made you decide the menu? You did it all by yourself I believe.

Yeah, I built this from scratch and I also built the menu. Of course there has to be some changes because of recommendations from the people that are working in the kitchen.

To summarize, TOTT is a restaurant that follows the sustainability trends of the industry in many ways. In the past few years in the hospitality industry, sustainability has become more and more important and, therefore, TOTT has focused on it more as well. They have added vegetarian elements/dishes to their menu, wanting to serve all customers’ needs and to be more sustainable. Customer service in general is a big part of the business and he wants to make sure his customers have a good experience in the restaurant. TOTT buys some of the ingredients locally, but for example, meat is bought from an international (German) wholesaler. The quality of local products is great and that’s important for TOTT and something they put a lot of focus on.