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Paul de Pierre Food Identity independently reviewed
Food Identity How restaurants source, cook and care. Independently reviewed

Paul de Pierre

A fine dining restaurant in the Flemish Ardennes where the menu is rewritten every two months around 88 varieties of vegetables, herbs and fruit grown in the restaurant's own garden.

Allergies Not published, ask the kitchen ahead

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

Paul de Pierre

A fine dining restaurant in the Flemish Ardennes where the menu is rewritten every two months around 88 varieties of vegetables, herbs and fruit grown in the restaurant's own garden.

The essentials, at a glance

Allergies Not published, ask the kitchen ahead

Documented practices
Independently
reviewed
Local sourcing
Seasonal cooking
Plant-forward menu

Documented practices

Local sourcing Own 88-variety organic garden supplies vegetables and herbs
Seasonal cooking Menu rebuilt every two months from gardens and farms
Plant-forward menu Parallel vegetarian menu same length as chef's

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

Paul de Pierre sits among the fields of the Flemish Ardennes, part restaurant, part event venue and wine shop. The kitchen keeps a deliberately short card, built around what the garden and the surrounding farms can supply that month.

Head chef Fabian Bail has led the kitchen for more than a decade and composes a new menu every two months, running a full vegetarian version of the same length alongside it. The wine side of the house is unusually deep, with more than 2,000 references on the list.

About one hectare of grounds carries a vineyard, an orchard, a herb garden and the vegetable beds, and guests are welcome to walk out and see them in fine weather.

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

A fine-dining kitchen that rewrites its tasting menu every two months, building around seasonal produce from its own garden of 88 varieties and neighbouring farms. The menu runs to four, five or six courses, with a full parallel vegetarian version offered at the same lengths and price point. The deliberately limited card is built on traceability: vegetables, herbs and fruit from the restaurant's own grounds, with other categories sourced through named relationships with local farmers and growers.

The menu runs to four, five or six courses and turns over every two months, so dishes follow what is ready in the garden and on the neighbouring farms.

Vegetables lead several of them: butternut with carrot, orange and hummus, or celeriac carpaccio with pomegranate. A vegetarian menu of the same length, named after a tour of the garden, sits beside the main one rather than behind it.

The kitchen works from whole produce cut in its own beds, and the card is kept deliberately short so each item can be traced back to where it came from.

Cuisine

French

Dietary options

Vegetarian options
Impact score
How this restaurant rates
3 - Endorsed

The kitchen has confirmed solid practice in three areas of responsible cooking, which places it at three planets.

Local and direct sourcing is the clearest of them: vegetables, herbs and fruit come from the restaurant's own garden, where 88 varieties are grown by natural and organic methods, and the rest is bought from farms in the surrounding area that the team visits in person. Seasonal cooking follows from that, with the whole menu rewritten every two months around what the garden and those farms have ready. On the plant side, a vegetarian menu runs at the same length as the main one, and the garden supplies the vegetables that carry it.

Paul de Pierre is listed in the We're Smart Green Guide, the European guide to vegetable-led cooking, and holds the Fair Wine Restaurant label for transparent wine pricing.

The impact dimensions

Local & direct sourcing✓

Seasonal cooking✓

Sustainable animal products

Social impact

Plant-forward menu✓

Own garden of 88 varieties grown naturally and organically, with direct relationships with local farmers for other categories, emphasising short supply chains and knowledge of provenance.

The restaurant's own garden is the anchor of its sourcing: 88 varieties of vegetables, herbs and fruit are grown on site by natural and organic methods, and guests may walk it in good weather. The We're Smart Green Guide and Gault&Millau Belgium both independently corroborate this, with Gault&Millau citing Flemish scorzonera as a seasonal example.

For categories the garden cannot cover, the restaurant states it works through personal relationships with local farmers and growers, visits them, and follows the process from feed to slaughter to keep the food chain short. The menu is kept deliberately limited to support this direct sourcing.

Strongest sourceWe're Smart Green Guide ↗

Menu completely rewritten every two months around what the garden and farms have ready, with all published dishes reflecting current seasonal availability.

The menu is rewritten in full every two months, a rhythm of six rotations a year. The kitchen names seasonal examples such as Flemish scorzonera and courgette, and the published autumn card is built around butternut, carrot, parsnip, celeriac, beetroot, fennel and blackberry.

The restaurant states that each new menu is composed from what the farmers and the vegetable garden have at that moment, and that products are processed seasonally. An a la carte selection also varies with market availability alongside the tasting menus.

Strongest sourceGault&Millau Belgium ↗

Beef identified by breed and ageing, seafood listed without welfare certification or catch method, claims knowledge of production process but no named suppliers.

The restaurant states it knows the origin of its animal products and the process from feed to slaughter, visits farmers and growers personally, and follows the complete process. Beef is identified by breed and ageing: Gerijpt Simmenthal rund and Aged Angus entrecote appear on the menu.

Seafood is listed without welfare qualification: sea bass, monkfish, turbot, lobster, langoustine and North Sea grey shrimp carry no MSC, ASC or catch-method notation. Veal and veal sweetbreads are served without documented tracing.

Strongest sourceRestaurant submission

Team described as working on permanent professional development; owner-sommelier has coaching record in Maitre d'hotel competitions.

The restaurant's about page describes the team as working on permanent further training and innovative entrepreneurship. The head chef Fabian Bail is credited with a decade leading the kitchen, and a vacancies page is maintained.

The owner-sommelier is noted as coach of the winners of the Eerste Maitre d'hotel van Belgie in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, and the Best Maitre d'Hotel of the World in 2022.

Strongest sourceRestaurant submission

Full parallel vegetarian tasting menu at same lengths and comparable price as the chef's menu, built around the garden's vegetables, herbs and fruit.

A full parallel vegetarian tasting menu, Le Tour du Jardin, is offered at the same four, five and six course lengths as the chef's menu, at a comparable price point. It runs to celeriac carpaccio with pomegranate, butternut with carrot and orange and hummus, ratatouille with fennel and sourdough, watercress pesto linguine, and glazed beetroot with courgette flower and mangetout.

Gault&Millau Belgium describes the vegetarian version as of equal quality. The We're Smart Green Guide listing independently validates the restaurant's plant-forward intent. The garden of 88 vegetable, herb and fruit varieties supplies the ingredients that carry both the vegetarian menu and the plant-led courses of the chef's menu.

Strongest sourceWe're Smart Green Guide ↗

Sourcing signals

✓
Own-grown produce

The restaurant grows 88 varieties of vegetables, herbs and fruit in its own garden, stated as grown 100% naturally and organically, and guests may walk the garden in good weather. The We're Smart Green Guide and Gault&Millau Belgium independently corroborate this.

Visit & practical info
Address, price, and more
Address
Nederholbeekstraat 135, 9680 Maarkedal, Maarkedal, Belgium
Open in Google Maps ↗
Price
€€€€
Format
Four, five or six course tasting menus, also a parallel vegetarian version at the same lengths
Hours
MondayClosed
TuesdayClosed
WednesdayClosed
ThursdayClosed
Friday12:00–16:00, 19:00–23:45
Saturday19:00–23:45
Sunday12:00–16:00
Style
Fine dining
Cosy
Good to know
Terrace
Garden
Private dining room
Web
pauldepierre.be
Reviewed by My Treats
Last reviewed 15 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.
Endorsed Meaningful practice across three or more dimensions.
This place
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
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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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