The Situation
De Pijp was gentrifying. The restaurants opening around them were Instagrammable brunch spots with avocado toast and cold brew. The Indonesian restaurant's value — 70-year-old recipes, traditional cooking techniques, a grandmother who'd cooked the same sambal for four decades — was invisible to anyone who didn't already know.
The Turning Point
Dewi filmed her mother making rendang for a family gathering — the spice preparation, the 3-hour cooking process, the history of the dish — and posted it as a TikTok on a whim. It got 420,000 views in a week. The comments were full of Indonesians in the diaspora moved to tears, international food lovers who had never tried Indonesian food, and Amsterdammers asking where the restaurant was.
What We Did — And Why
The strategy built entirely around Ibu (the owner's mother): her recipes, her stories, her hands. Kitchen process videos showing the 3-hour rendang process, the spice grinding, the tempeh fermentation. Cultural education content explaining the significance of rijsttafel, the history of Dutch-Indonesian food exchange, the regional variations in Indonesia. Discovery content framing the restaurant as Amsterdam's best-kept secret for food tourists.
Our Approach
- 1.Kitchen storytelling TikToks: the head cook (the owner's 70-year-old mother) preparing traditional recipes on camera
- 2.Cultural education series: the history and meaning behind each traditional Indonesian dish
- 3.Tourist discovery content: 'Hidden restaurants Amsterdam locals want to keep secret'
The Results
56k TikTok followers in 8 months, entirely organic. Walk-in traffic grew 220% as food tourists cited TikTok. Weekly covers grew from 280 to 490. Capacity utilisation hit 90%. Ibu became a minor local celebrity, with diners requesting photos and returning to try dishes they'd seen cooked.
In Their Own Words
“The best content is the one only you can make. Nobody else has Ibu.”