4 - Recognised
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The kitchen has a strong record across five areas of cooking.
Local and direct sourcing is grounded in the Enschedese Groeituin, a 6,000-square-metre community garden that supplies heirloom vegetables and fruit to the kitchen, alongside the chef's own on-site vegetable and herb plot. Seasonal cooking is reflected in a single changing menu that turns with what suppliers can offer, so the kitchen works with produce at its peak rather than against the calendar. A zero-waste focus shapes daily operations, with ordering scaled to expected guest numbers so that very little is thrown away.
The Royal Green vegetarian menu sits at equal billing with the standard menu, and the restaurant appears in the We're Smart Green Guide for its plant-forward cooking. The Groeituin partnership runs through DCW, the city's social-employment service, providing work experience and skills training to people building toward employment, with surplus produce going to the local food bank.
The impact dimensions
Low waste & circular practices✓
Sustainable animal products
The Royal Green menu sources heirloom vegetables from the Enschedese Groeituin, a 6,000 m² community garden, and the chef's own kitchen garden.
The Enschedese Groeituin, a 6,000-square-metre community kitchen garden located at the DCW nursery in Enschede, supplies heirloom vegetables to the kitchen on request. Chef Emiel Kwekkeboom was a founding restaurant partner at the garden's launch in March 2023. The chef also maintains an on-site vegetable and herb plot that feeds the menu.
The Groeituin grows varieties including meiraap, aardpeer, scorzonera, yakon and tomatoes for the Royal Green vegetarian menu. Local sourcing for the meat-and-fish menus is not described with the same naming specificity.
The single changing menu shifts with seasonal availability, following what suppliers can offer at their peak.
The restaurant's own pages state that 'the seasons, availability, and a high standard of quality determine our selection of ingredients' and that the menu changes regularly.
Editorial coverage adds that the chef chose a single changing menu deliberately on sustainability grounds, allowing the kitchen to follow supply and demand and work with products that are well-stocked season by season.
The kitchen scales daily ordering to expected guest numbers, with a zero-waste focus reflected in regional sustainability profiles.
Editorial coverage describes Restaurant Joann as 'focused on zero-waste, throwing almost nothing away' and reports that the kitchen 'buys daily what they need for the number of guests'.
A regional sustainability platform catalogued the restaurant under Global Goal 12 (responsible consumption and production), though specific composting or surplus-handling practices are not named.
Strongest source twenteculinair.com
The kitchen's focus on seasonality and zero-waste ordering extends to animal products, though specific welfare certifications are not named.
The kitchen serves animal products including Anjou pigeon and red mullet alongside the vegetarian Royal Green menu. No recognised sustainability certifications (MSC, ASC, Beter Leven, organic) are attributed to the meat or fish, and no specific named welfare-led farms or fisheries are identified.
The restaurant's website describes animal-sourcing via quality and seasonality rather than welfare standards. Self-declared language focuses on ingredient quality and seasonal availability.
Strongest source Restaurant submission
The Enschedese Groeituin partnership with DCW provides work-experience placements for six to ten people daily, with surplus produce donated to the local food bank.
The restaurant's flagship sourcing partnership is the Enschedese Groeituin, run with the City of Enschede's DCW social-employment service. The garden provides supported work and skills training to people building toward employment.
Chef Emiel Kwekkeboom was a founding restaurant partner at the garden's 2023 launch. The garden supplies six to ten workers daily and donates surplus produce to the local food bank and other social projects in the city. Independent editorial coverage corroborates both the employment and food-bank dimensions.
Royal Green, a fully vegetarian five-to-eight course menu, sits at equal price tier and billing with the standard meat-and-fish format.
Restaurant Joann offers Royal Green, a fully vegetarian menu of five to eight courses, alongside the classic Menu Joann and Touch of Gold edition. The plant-forward menu sits at the same price tier, presenting it as a parallel, equal-billing offer rather than a secondary or upon-request adaptation.
The We're Smart Green Guide recognises Joann for vegetable-based cuisine sourced from the Enschedese Groeituin community garden and the chef's own kitchen garden.
Sourcing signals
✓
Direct named-farm sourcing
Editorial coverage confirms an on-site vegetable and herb garden that the chef draws on for the menu, complementing the Enschedese Groeituin partnership.
The Enschedese Groeituin, a 6,000 m² community kitchen garden run with DCW, is named on the restaurant's website and in editorial coverage as the source of heirloom vegetables for the Royal Green menu, with the chef as a founding partner at the 2023 launch.
