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La Villa du Hautsart Food Identity independently reviewed
Food Identity How restaurants source, cook and care. Independently reviewed

La Villa du Hautsart

A country gastronomic restaurant in the Walloon Brabant village of Mélin, where two Belgian master cooks build seasonal French cooking around vegetables, herbs and fruit from their own garden and orchard.

Food Identity How restaurants source, cook and care. Independently reviewed

La Villa du Hautsart

A country gastronomic restaurant in the Walloon Brabant village of Mélin, where two Belgian master cooks build seasonal French cooking around vegetables, herbs and fruit from their own garden and orchard.

The essentials, at a glance


Documented practices
Independently
reviewed
Local sourcing
Seasonal cooking

Documented practices

Local sourcing Own 1200 m² garden plus named nearby suppliers
Seasonal cooking Menu changes every six weeks following seasonal availability

Style
Fine dining
Cosy
Cuisine
French
Good to know
Terrace
Garden
Private dining room
Recognised by
We're Smart Green Guide
Recognised by
We're Smart Green Guide

The delicious details

La Villa du Hautsart has occupied the same stone house in Mélin, one of Wallonia's listed villages, since 1994. Olivier Wilbers has run the kitchen for over two decades with Frédéric Picot, both Maîtres Cuisiniers de Belgique.

A 1200 square metre garden beside the restaurant sets the rhythm of the carte, rewritten about every six weeks. It grows twelve varieties of tomato, five of strawberry, herbs and borage, and the orchard is pressed into apple and pear juice. Cheese comes from Lathuy, charcuterie from Piétrain, bread from a Jodoigne baker and honey from the apiary in the village.

Autumn brings game: wild boar carpaccio with quince, doe with cabbage purée, pheasant à la Brabançonne. The dining room keeps its Gobertange stone, period woodwork and open fireplace.

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

Classic French cooking shaped by the garden and the season, rewritten every six weeks. Vegetables lead the plates, cauliflower mousse under roasted cod, butternut tatin with chestnuts, pointed cabbage with saffron and grey shrimp. The kitchen works from whole ingredients: croquettes, mousses, sorbets and juice pressed from the restaurant's own orchard.

The carte is classic French cooking shaped by the garden and the season: three starters, three mains and two desserts, rewritten about every six weeks.

Vegetables carry the plates rather than sitting beside them, cauliflower mousse and braised leek heart under roasted cod, butternut tatin with carrots and chestnuts, pointed cabbage with saffron and grey shrimp. The kitchen works from whole ingredients rather than pre made components, down to the croquettes, mousses and sorbets and the juice pressed from its own orchard.

Vegetarian and vegan versions of the menu are cooked on request, and dietary wishes, allergies and particular diets are taken into account when they are flagged with the booking.

Cuisine

French

Dietary options

Vegetarian options
Allergies & intolerances
How this kitchen handles the EU-14 allergens
Handled on request
Public sources point to a working level of allergen accommodation, but no dedicated preparation area. Treat this as a starting point and confirm directly.
Always confirm your allergy directly with the restaurant when booking.
Researched from public sources · spontaan.be · not yet confirmed by the restaurant
Impact score
How this restaurant rates
2 - Engaged

Vegetables, herbs and edible flowers come from a 1200 square metre garden beside the restaurant, and the orchard on the property is pressed into apple and pear juice. Cheese comes from Lathuy, charcuterie from Piétrain, bread from a baker in Jodoigne and honey from an apiary in Mélin itself, each within a short drive of the kitchen. The carte is rewritten about every six weeks and follows what the garden and the region give, which in October means game, quince, celeriac, chestnuts and Boskoop apples.

The restaurant is listed in the We're Smart Green Guide for its vegetable led cooking.

The impact dimensions

Local & direct sourcing✓

Seasonal cooking✓

Sustainable animal products✓

Plant-forward menu✓

Multiple named local producers across several categories: vegetables from the restaurant's own 1200 m² garden, cheese from Lathuy, charcuterie from Piétrain, bread from a Jodoigne baker, and honey from the village apiary.

Multiple named local producers across several categories, with direct relationships evident. Vegetables, herbs and edible flowers come from the restaurant's own 1200 square metre garden beside the building, planted with twelve varieties of tomato, five of strawberry, herbs and borage; the orchard is pressed into apple and pear juice. Independent coverage names cheese from Lathuy, charcuterie from Piétrain and bread from a baker in Jodoigne, all within the same municipality or a few kilometres of the restaurant. The Hautsart apiary in Mélin collaborates with the restaurant and sells honey there.

On the protein side, Coucou de Malines poultry, Belgian game and North Sea grey shrimp carry regional origin. Irish beef and Norwegian salmon also appear on the carte, which holds the dimension at level 4 rather than level 5.

Strongest sourcebazarmagazin.com ↗

The carte follows seasonal availability and is rewritten about every six weeks according to the market and the season, which is well above a quarterly rotation.

The carte follows seasonal availability and the kitchen communicates it as a guiding principle. The We're Smart Green Guide entry describes a large vegetable garden beside the restaurant that lets the kitchen follow the seasons, and Gault&Millau records local products and garden produce as the inspiration for the cooking. The restaurant states that the carte is rewritten about every six weeks according to the market and the season.

Two separately dated cartes, one from August and one from October 2026, show the seasonal pattern. The October carte is built on autumn: wild boar carpaccio with quince and celeriac, doe fillet with wild mushroom, pheasant à la Brabançonne with braised endive, plus chestnuts and Boskoop apple.

Strongest sourceWe're Smart Green Guide ↗

Named breeds and regions narrow the sourcing picture without making it verifiable: Coucou de Malines poultry, Mulard duck, Piétrain charcuterie, Belgian game, North Sea grey shrimp, Irish beef and Norwegian salmon, but no named butcher, fishmonger or farm and no welfare or fisheries certification.

Named breeds and regions narrow the sourcing picture without making it verifiable. Documented on the cartes and in independent coverage: Coucou de Malines poultry, Mulard duck, Piétrain charcuterie, Belgian game (wild boar, doe, pheasant), North Sea grey shrimp, Irish Picanha beef and Norwegian salmon. No butcher, fishmonger or farm is named for any animal category and no welfare or fisheries certification is cited anywhere.

Foie gras appears on the October 2026 carte. Game and grey shrimp are the strongest regional signals on the protein side but carry no named supplier or welfare label.

Strongest sourcebazarmagazin.com ↗

Vegetables are prominent on the plate and central to the kitchen's own sourcing, but the menu is not structured around them; three starters, three mains and two desserts carry no vegetarian main, though vegetarian and vegan versions are cooked on request.

Vegetables are prominent on the plate and central to the kitchen's own sourcing, but the menu is not structured around them. The We're Smart Green Guide, the dedicated authority on vegetable-led cooking, lists the restaurant and records that the colourful vegetables grown in the restaurant's own garden are used in preparations with meat or fish, which places vegetables alongside the protein rather than at the centre.

The carte published for October 2026 carries three starters, three mains and two desserts with no vegetarian main, the proteins being wild boar, cod, foie gras, John Dory, doe and pheasant. Vegetables appear as substantial components throughout: cauliflower mousse, braised leek heart, butternut tatin, pointed cabbage and braised endive. Vegetarian and vegan versions are cooked on request, as documented by a 2021 review.

Strongest sourceWe're Smart Green Guide ↗

Sourcing signals

✓
Own-grown produce
✓
Direct named-farm sourcing

1200 m² kitchen garden grows tomatoes, strawberries, herbs and edible flowers; orchard presses apples and pears into juice. Multiple independent sources confirm vegetables and aromatics come directly from the garden to the plate.

Cheese from Lathuy, charcuterie from Piétrain, bread from a Jodoigne baker, and honey from Hautsart apiary in Mélin; all within a few kilometres and in direct collaboration with the restaurant.

Visit & practical info
Address, price, and more
Address
Rue de Hussompont 30, 1370 Mélin, Jodoigne, Belgium
Open in Google Maps ↗
Price
€€€
Format
À la carte menu; reservation required, Friday-Sunday only
Hours
MondayClosed
TuesdayClosed
WednesdayClosed
ThursdayClosed
Friday12:00–14:00, 19:00–21:00
Saturday12:00–14:00, 19:00–21:00
Sunday12:00–14:00
Not captured during screening; filled from Google Places by the server backfill. The restaurant's own reservation page states lunch and dinner on Friday and Saturday (12:00 to 14:00 and 19:00 to 21:00) and lunch only on Sunday (12:00 to 14:00), closed Monday to Thursday. The 2017 chef interview records the same Friday to Sunday pattern.
Style
Fine dining
Cosy
Good to know
Terrace
Garden
Private dining room
Web
lavilladuhautsart.com
Reviewed by My Treats
Last reviewed 07 Oct 2026
Reserve To website
Link copied
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 an impact score 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.

Scores of four or five 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
—
How this dimension works
—
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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