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Leidsche Rijn · Utrecht · Netherlands

The Colour Kitchen De Hoge Weide

A converted farmhouse restaurant in Leidsche Rijn run by people with intellectual disabilities and professional cooks, with its own kitchen garden on Het Groene Sticht.

The essentials, at a glance

◐
Impact score
2 - Engaged
→
Documented practices
Local sourcing
Seasonal cooking
Social impact

Style
Casual
Cosy
Cuisine
Dutch
International
Good to know
Terrace
Garden
Private dining room
Wheelchair accessible

The delicious details

Restaurant De Hoge Weide sits in a converted farmhouse on Het Groene Sticht, an ecological community in the Leidsche Rijn district of Utrecht. Operated by The Colour Kitchen and the care organisation Reinaerde, it has run for two decades as a social enterprise where people with intellectual disabilities work alongside professional cooks and practice trainers. The team handles kitchen, service, dishwashing, and housekeeping under structured guidance, with weekly training in hospitality skills and guest contact.

Around sixty seats fill the cosy interior of the old farmhouse; a green terrace and a kitchen garden extend the room outdoors. Lunch, dinner, and meeting rooms are all on offer, with coffee and homemade baking through the day.

Menu
What's on the table, and what's left off

Lunch offers sandwiches, soups, and salads; dinner features meat, fish, and vegetarian dishes. Fresh produce from the kitchen garden appears on the table, and homemade baking accompanies coffee service through the day.

Cuisine
Dutch
International
Dietary options
Vegetarian options
Impact score
How this restaurant rates
2 - Engaged

Social impact is the central thread of The Colour Kitchen De Hoge Weide's operation.

The restaurant has worked for two decades on Het Groene Sticht as a social enterprise, with people with intellectual disabilities employed alongside professional cooks and practice trainers from The Colour Kitchen and the care organisation Reinaerde. Daily activity covers kitchen, service, dishwashing, and housekeeping under structured guidance, with weekly training in hospitality and guest contact.

The parent organisation, The Colour Kitchen 3.0, holds PSO Trede 3, the highest tier of the Dutch Performance Ladder for Social Entrepreneurship, and is a member of Social Enterprise NL and of the SER network of socially driven employers.

The impact dimensions
Local & direct sourcing✓
Seasonal cooking✓
Social impact✓
Plant-forward menu

The kitchen garden on Het Groene Sticht supplies fresh produce; no other named local suppliers are documented.

Own kitchen garden on Het Groene Sticht provides fresh produce to the table. The Colour Kitchen group states a commitment to 'so much organic and regional product as possible', but this is generic self-declared language without a named producer or verifiable scope.

No external local supplier is named on the menu, website, or in independent coverage.

Strongest sourcethecolourkitchen.com ↗

The kitchen garden yields seasonal produce; no documented menu rotation is visible to guests.

The own kitchen garden implies seasonal rotation of what appears on the table. A 2025 TripAdvisor review notes the menu as 'monotonous', suggesting seasonality is not strongly visible to guests.

No archived seasonal menus or journalist coverage of quarterly menu changes are documented.

Strongest sourcethecolourkitchen.com ↗

PSO Trede 3–certified social enterprise where people with intellectual disabilities work alongside professional cooks and practice trainers.

The Colour Kitchen 3.0 holds PSO Trede 3, the highest tier of the Dutch Performance Ladder for Social Entrepreneurship, confirmed in the public PSO Nederland registry. More than 30% of group employees fall within the social-entrepreneurship target group; 77% of pupils find a job or internship after completing the programme.

De Hoge Weide specifically has run as an inclusive workplace for people with intellectual disabilities for two decades. Daily activity covers kitchen, service, dishwashing, and housekeeping under structured guidance, with weekly training in hospitality and guest contact, supervised by Reinaerde practice trainers and Colour Kitchen operational staff.

Independent listings on Social Enterprise NL, Impact Ondernemen, and the SER network of socially driven employers corroborate the model.

Strongest sourcepso-nederland.nl ↗

Menu structured around meat, fish, and vegetarian options; vegetarian availability is minimal according to recent guest reviews.

Menu is structured around meat, fish, and vegetarian dishes in a traditional repertoire: sandwiches, soups, salads at lunch; meat, fish, vegetarian options at dinner.

A 2025 TripAdvisor review explicitly notes 'for vegetarians there is almost nothing to order' and describes the offer as 'monotonous'. No vegan-specific positioning is documented.

Strongest sourcetripadvisor.com ↗
Sourcing signals
✓
Own-grown produce

The restaurant states that dishes are served with fresh ingredients from its own kitchen garden on Het Groene Sticht; the share of total ingredients is not quantified.

Visit & practical info
Address, price, and more
Address
Ab Harrewijnstraat 45, 3544 AL Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
Open in Google Maps ↗
Price
€€
Format
60 seats. Lunch and dinner service.
Hours
MondayClosed
Tuesday10:00–21:30
Wednesday10:00–21:30
Thursday10:00–21:30
Friday10:00–21:30
Saturday10:00–21:30
Sunday15:00–21:30
Style
Casual
Cosy
Good to know
Terrace
Garden
Private dining room
Wheelchair accessible
Web
thecolourkitchen.com
Reviewed by My Treats
Last reviewed 04 May 2026
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How we score
The My Treats impact scale

Every restaurant is assessed against SEERO, our six-dimension sustainability framework — covering sourcing, seasonality, waste, animal products, social impact, and plant-forward cooking. Each finding is weighted by how strongly it is corroborated. The combined result is translated into a planet rating from 1 to 5.

The five levels

SEERO is an acronym for Starting, Engaged, Endorsed, Recognised, Outstanding:

Starting First verified signals of sustainable practice.
Engaged Credible practice across two dimensions.
This place
Endorsed Meaningful practice across three or more dimensions.
Recognised Strong practice across four or more dimensions, with independent corroboration.
Outstanding Top-tier practice, confirmed by recognised third-party audit.

How a level is reached. Each level needs two things together: a minimum number of dimensions covered, and a minimum overall strength of evidence across them. A dimension only counts once its evidence is specific and substantiated — a passing mention doesn't qualify. Meeting only one of the two keeps a restaurant a level lower.

Ratings of four or five planets require human validation and, at the top tier, an external audit. Scores are based on publicly available evidence and restaurant submissions at the time of assessment.

Full methodology→
Impact dimension
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How this dimension works
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How evidence is weighted
Self-declared Stated by the restaurant on its website, menu or in a submission. Plausible, but not yet independently corroborated.
Researched Found through independent research; one credible third-party source backs the claim.
Vouched Corroborated across more than one independent source. Some gaps may remain.
Audited Fully corroborated across independent sources or by a recognised third-party certification.
What the sourcing checkmarks mean
✓ Full check — independently verified: corroborated across more than one source, or audited / third-party certified (vouched or audited).
✓ Light check — self-declared or from a single source. Not yet independently verified.
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