Chef Guillaume de Beer, one of the co-founders, remembers his mother making toasties in those old metal clamps that you hold above the fire on the stove. During family holidays in France, they would often eat them for dinner: Pain de mie bread, salted butter, good ham, and Emmental cheese.

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During the Pandemic, Guillaume started serving these toasties from one of his restaurants. He made them in the same spirit as the ones his mother used to make, but now for the public.

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Because the toastie is sealed inside the clamp, the edges become crisp and closed, while the inside stays soft, hot, and full of melted cheese. Compared to your average Dutch tosti, the result is night and day. 

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That childhood memory became the foundation of PAINDEMIE, which opened its own venue on the Kinkerstraat in Amsterdam. That’s when we noticed an obvious pattern: in busy venues, toasties are often on the menu, but rarely treated as a serious product.

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We are changing that by bringing our original, sealed-edge quality into a product that works for professional kitchens.