3 - Endorsed
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Melt builds its menus around three areas of responsible cooking. Seasonality comes first: the kitchen follows what the season provides rather than the calendar, with lunch menus changing weekly and the tasting menu turning over every five to six weeks.
Fish sourcing is the second. Jan Audenaert is part of the NorthSeaChefs collective, which works with Belgian and Dutch fishermen on lesser known species and bycatch, and he was named Flanders' Fish Chef of the Year in 2020 for a dish built on whiting, a cheap species landed alongside sole and plaice. The restaurant states the principle directly: we should learn to eat what the fishermen catch.
The third is the plant forward kitchen. The whole opening run of small plates is vegetable, and every lunch menu is built as a vegetable course followed by a main and a dessert, so a vegetable course is a fixed element rather than an option. Two of these commitments carry recognition from outside the restaurant: the We're Smart Green Guide lists the kitchen, and the NorthSeaChefs collective counts Jan Audenaert among its chefs.
The impact dimensions
Low waste & circular practices
Sustainable animal products✓
The restaurant sources through NorthSeaChefs, working with Belgian and Dutch fishermen on lesser-known species and bycatch, and describes sourcing from local quality producers.
An undated trade press interview reports that the chef sources from local quality producers and from the nearby North Sea fisheries. The fish channel is the one part of the sourcing picture that is both regional and direct: lesser known species and bycatch reach the kitchen from Belgian and Dutch fishermen through the NorthSeaChefs collective, a named and verifiable short chain for one category.
The current menus also carry produce from outside the region, including artichoke 'Violet de Provence', papaya and ginger.
The lunch menu changes weekly and the tasting menu rotates every five to six weeks, following what the season provides rather than the calendar.
The restaurant states that it does not follow the calendar but what the season provides. Independent coverage of the 2026 relaunch records a tasting menu that changes every five to six weeks and a lunch menu that changes every week, and the Gault&Millau entry independently describes menus that rotate every six weeks.
The published lunch menu carries its own week long date range, the week of 6 to 9 October, and the autumn menus are built on roe deer, green cabbage, redcurrant, blackberry, nectarine and artichoke, with no obviously out of season produce. The chef's seasonal positioning is also carried on the NorthSeaChefs roster, which describes a love for fresh, recognisable seasonal products.
The restaurant sources underappreciated species and bycatch from the North Sea through NorthSeaChefs, which prevents fish being discarded at sea.
The restaurant's own site states that it works with underappreciated species and bycatch from the North Sea as a NorthSeaChefs ambassador, which puts to use fish that would otherwise be discarded at sea.
Jan Audenaert is listed on the NorthSeaChefs roster and was named Fish Chef of the Year 2020 by VLAM for a dish built on whiting, a species landed as bycatch of sole and plaice.
The seafood category has a traceable commitment that is corroborated outside the restaurant. The NorthSeaChefs roster lists Jan Audenaert as one of its chefs, and the collective works with Belgian and Dutch fishermen on lesser known and undervalued species and on bycatch; on his own profile he sets bycatch alongside the classic flatfish and treats steenbolk, or pouting, as the equal of any of them.
VLAM, the Flemish agro and fisheries marketing agency, named him Fish Chef of the Year 2020 for a dish built on whiting, a cheap species landed as bycatch of sole and plaice, and he worked in the collective's 2020 research group, which sends members a box of unfamiliar species several times a year. The restaurant states the principle directly: we should learn to eat what the fishermen catch rather than have them catch what we want to eat.
Listed in We're Smart Green Guide; every lunch menu features a dedicated vegetable course and vegetarian dishes are reworked in full.
Vegetables carry real structural weight without displacing the animal proteins from the main course. The restaurant is listed in the We're Smart Green Guide, the specialist guide to vegetable led dining, and that listing is the priority source and the basis on which this dimension counts as covered.
On the current menus the whole opening run of small plates is vegetable, salsa verde with cucumber and capers, focaccia with black olives, young courgette in pesto and beetroot with ricotta, and every lunch menu is built as a vegetable course followed by a main and a dessert, so a vegetable course is a fixed element rather than an option. The restaurant states that vegetarian guests are given dishes reworked in full, with the same attention to product, season, flavour and texture.
Sourcing signals
The chef makes his own vegetable oils and vegetable powders, using leek and ramsons as key aromatics, and the kitchen prepares its own brioche and alcohol-free pairings from cold tea bases seasoned to each dish.
