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

Escabèche

A fine dining address in Knokke where seasonal fish and game lead a card of French cooking cut with Japanese and Mediterranean accents.

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

Escabèche

A fine dining address in Knokke where seasonal fish and game lead a card of French cooking cut with Japanese and Mediterranean accents.

The essentials, at a glance


Documented practices
Independently
reviewed
Seasonal cooking

Documented practices

Seasonal cooking Game in season, fish through summer

Style
Fine dining
Cuisine
Asian
French
Mediterranean
Seafood
Good to know
Dog-friendly
Recognised by
We're Smart Green Guide
Recognised by
We're Smart Green Guide·2 radishes

The delicious details

Escabèche has held the same address on the Dumortierlaan in Knokke for more than 15 years, with Kim Verhasselt in the kitchen as chef and co-owner. The cooking is deliberately uncomplicated: Verhasselt puts the product in the foreground, then finds the garnish and the sauce to match it.

Fish runs through the card all year, a legacy of the years he spent learning fish cookery under Yves Mattagne at Sea Grill, and the menu turns to game in season. Japanese accents such as dashi and a Mediterranean streak keep the plates light, with sharp acidity as a through line.

Vegetables carry real weight in the compositions, from celeriac baked in a salt crust with winter truffle to pointed cabbage set against skate. The room itself is contemporary and unshowy, and much of the trade is regulars.

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

À la carte and three set menus built around seasonal fish and game. The card moves to game through autumn and winter, to fish through the warmer months. Vegetables carry real weight in the compositions, celeriac in a salt crust with winter truffle, pointed cabbage with apple and king crab, and the kitchen works from whole ingredients and classical method: salt crusts, curing, roasting on the bone.

The card is built around fish and seasonal game: starters such as seared mackerel, hamachi crudo and beef tataki, and mains running from cod and Dover sole to wild duck and partridge. Set menus sit alongside the à la carte, from a short lunch to a longer tasting menu.

Vegetables are treated as composition rather than garnish, as in celeriac baked in a salt crust with savoy cabbage and winter truffle, or pointed cabbage with apple and king crab. The kitchen works from whole ingredients and classical method, salt crusts, curing, searing and roasting on the bone, rather than from convenience bases.

Guests with an allergy are asked to mention it ahead of the visit, and the kitchen will settle on an alternative with the chef.

Cuisine

Asian
French
Mediterranean
Seafood
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 · escabeche.be · not yet confirmed by the restaurant
Impact score
How this restaurant rates
1 - Starting

The kitchen at Escabèche cooks to the seasons. The card moves to game through autumn and winter and centres on fish through the warmer months, with dishes built around produce at its moment, winter truffle and savoy cabbage among them in the cold season. Guide coverage confirms that seasonal game is a fixture of the restaurant's year.

Vegetables are built into the compositions rather than treated as garnish. Escabèche is listed in the We're Smart Green Guide, a specialist guide to vegetable-led cooking, where it holds two radishes.

The impact dimensions

Seasonal cooking✓

Sustainable animal products✓

Plant-forward menu✓

The card moves to game through autumn and winter and centres on fish through the warmer months, with dishes built around seasonal produce.

The restaurant states seasonal products as the foundation of its cooking, and two independent guides confirm real rotation rather than decorative language: Gault&Millau cites game season specialities and names venison and pheasant dishes, and the MICHELIN Guide notes game dishes offered during game season.

The chef profile describes buying to seasonal rhythms, moving from game in winter to fish in summer. The We're Smart Green Guide listing names winter produce: savoy cabbage, winter truffle, pointed cabbage.

Strongest sourceGault&Millau ↗

Named breeds and species, Black Angus beef, Simmenthal beef, Dover sole, hamachi, king crab, skate, without a verifiable producer, and no welfare label documented.

Named breeds and species are present without a verifiable producer: Black Angus beef, Simmenthal beef, Dover sole, hamachi, king crab, skate. No butcher, fishmonger or farm is named, and no MSC, ASC, organic or welfare label is held.

The card is protein led across fish, game and beef. Foie gras is also present: the We're Smart Green Guide listing describes an escabèche of mushrooms, cauliflower and goose liver served with Simmenthal beef tartar.

Strongest sourceGault&Millau ↗

Escabèche holds two radishes in the We're Smart Green Guide, indicating meaningful vegetable presence with vegetables leading several compositions.

Escabèche holds two radishes in the We're Smart Green Guide, a partner-vouched rating that indicates the proportion of vegetables and fruit in the menus. At two of five it reads as meaningful vegetable presence rather than a plant-centred kitchen.

The We're Smart listing's dish descriptions support that: vegetables lead several compositions (pointed cabbage with apple and king crab alongside skate, celeriac baked in a salt crust with savoy cabbage and winter truffle, an escabèche of mushrooms and cauliflower), and Gault&Millau names a topinambur cream. The published card remains structurally protein led, with mains running cod, Dover sole, turbot, wild duck, partridge and Black Angus beef.

Strongest sourceWe're Smart Green Guide ↗
Visit & practical info
Address, price, and more
Address
Dumortierlaan 94, 8300 Knokke-Heist, Knokke-Heist, Belgium
Open in Google Maps ↗
Price
€€€
Format
À la carte and set menus. Allergies by booking.
Hours
Monday12:00–14:30, 19:00–22:00
TuesdayClosed
WednesdayClosed
Thursday12:00–14:30, 19:00–22:00
Friday12:00–14:30, 19:00–22:00
Saturday12:00–14:30, 19:00–22:00
Sunday12:00–14:30, 19:00–22:00
Not captured during screening. The restaurant's own site states closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, closed Monday evenings outside holiday periods, service ending at 16:00 and 24:00, and an annual closure from 23 November to 10 December.
Style
Fine dining
Good to know
Dog-friendly
Web
escabeche.be
Reviewed by My Treats
Last reviewed 7 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.
This place
Engaged Credible practice across two dimensions.
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
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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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