4 - Recognised
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Two named local producers—the Den Food Bosch food forest in Sint-Michielsgestel and Tuinderij Geworteld in Bruchem—deliver weekly vegetables, fruit and flowers, anchoring a kitchen that draws from its region. The menu rotates with the seasons, with spring carrying asparagus, morels and rhubarb and other courses following the months.
A fermentation lab above the dining room turns produce into miso, garum, koji preparations, kimchi, plant-based cheeses and kefir, extending ingredients across the year through preservation. Vegetables are the foundation of the cooking: the plant-only Botanical Challenge menu sits at the heart of the kitchen's identity, with meat and fish offered as a parallel choice.
The restaurant is listed in the We're Smart Green Guide top 100 with five radishes, is a member of Dutch Cuisine, holds the LekkerVega Gold mark for its plant-based base menu, and the chef-owner is an ambassador of Euro-Toques Netherlands.
The impact dimensions
Low waste & circular practices✓
Sustainable animal products
Two named local producers—Den Food Bosch and Tuinderij Geworteld—deliver weekly vegetables, fruit and flowers.
Den Food Bosch, a food forest in Sint-Michielsgestel, and Tuinderij Geworteld, a market garden in Bruchem run by Elisiv Lindroth, shape the daily kitchen. Both deliver weekly vegetables, fruit and flowers, anchoring the restaurant's commitment to regional sourcing ('most beautiful products come from local growers'). The relationship is corroborated across editorial sources and guide listings.
The kitchen's regional orientation extends to animal products, with Dutch Kingfish, polderlam and Oosterschelde crab named specifically on the menu, demonstrating local sourcing across categories. The two named local producers and their weekly rhythm form the foundation of a kitchen built on regional relationships.
Seasonal vegetables from local suppliers anchor a menu that shifts with spring asparagus, autumn wild duck and Oosterschelde crab.
Seasonality is positioned as a guiding principle, with the We're Smart Green Guide and Dutch Cuisine memberships both citing a preference for seasonal vegetables from the neighbourhood. The current Botanical Challenge menu carries spring markers—white and green asparagus, morels, rhubarb, magnolia, young leek; autumn and winter bring wild duck and Oosterschelde crab.
The food-forest partnership ties supply to seasonal availability; the fermentation lab extends short seasons by preserving produce, such as winter carrots aged with koji. Editorial coverage describes the menu as built around what the local growers deliver each week, embedding seasonality into the kitchen's rhythm.
A fermentation lab develops koji, miso, garum and plant-based cheeses to extend ingredient seasons, with a documented nose-to-tail approach.
A dedicated fermentation lab above the dining room develops koji, miso, garum, kimchi, plant-based cheeses, kefir, soy sauce and tempeh, using preservation methods to extend ingredient seasons. Winter carrots are aged with koji to maintain seasonal themes year-round. The fermentation practice is integral to the kitchen's waste-reduction strategy.
Editorial coverage describes a nose-to-tail, zero-waste orientation in the kitchen. The Botanical Challenge plant-based menu and the kitchen's intentional smaller proportion of animal protein also reduce reliance on waste-intensive categories. Together, these practices address waste reduction through fermentation and ingredient preservation.
The menu names fish and meat regionally (Dutch Kingfish, polderlam, Oosterschelde crab) and sources cheese from affineur Jokkmokk, with meat deliberately secondary to plants.
Animal products on the menu include steak tartaar, pork cheeks and aged flat iron steak, alongside seafood such as Dutch Kingfish and Oosterschelde crab. These carry regional specificity, and cheese is sourced from named affineur Jokkmokk. The chef-owner has publicly stated he eats meat once weekly.
The menu deliberately reduces animal-product proportion in favour of plants: the Botanical Challenge is wholly plant-based, and meat and fish are positioned as secondary to vegetables across the restaurant's identity. The kitchen's design minimises reliance on animal proteins as a foundational ingredient source.
The kitchen is defined by the Botanical Challenge all-plant menu and We're Smart Green Guide five-radish listing, with the Vis & Vlees track secondary.
The Botanical Challenge plant-only menu contains no meat or fish and is built from vegetables, fruits, herbs, nuts, seeds, seaweed and mushrooms. Chef-owner Martin Berkelmans explicitly positions vegetables as the starting point of the kitchen ('groenten zijn en blijven het uitgangspunt'), and press describes the restaurant as vegetable-led. The kitchen holds the LekkerVega Gold mark, which requires a 100% vegetarian base menu with at least 50% plant-derived ingredients.
The restaurant is listed in the We're Smart Green Guide top 100 with five radishes, ranked #82 in the 2025 list. The Vis & Vlees parallel track offers fish and meat, but these are explicitly secondary; about one-third of the menu is vegetarian and around half of the four-course tasting is plant-based. Dutch Cuisine membership and Gault & Millau coverage further validate the plant-forward identity as the defining characteristic of the kitchen.
Sourcing signals
✓
Direct named-farm sourcing
✓
Low-impact beverage program
Two named local producers—Den Food Bosch (Sint-Michielsgestel) and Tuinderij Geworteld (Bruchem)—deliver weekly vegetables, fruit and flowers, documented on the restaurant's own pages and corroborated in editorial coverage.
A fermentation lab above the dining room produces koji, tempeh, miso, garum, kimchi, plant-based cheeses and kefir; sauces, focaccia and mocktails are made in-house.
The sommelier-led wine programme sources organic-certified European wines; the alcohol-free pairing list includes specialty teas with traceable origin, house-brewed kefir and mocktails.
