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

De Graspoort

A small Mechelen dinner restaurant where a classic French base meets Japanese and Latin American cooking, served as four and five course menus that are rewritten with the seasons.

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

De Graspoort

A small Mechelen dinner restaurant where a classic French base meets Japanese and Latin American cooking, served as four and five course menus that are rewritten with the seasons.

The essentials, at a glance


Documented practices
Independently
reviewed
Seasonal cooking
Responsible meat & fish

Documented practices

Seasonal cooking Menu reissued seasonally featuring seasonal produce
Responsible meat & fish Irish Mór oysters, Van Tricht cheese

Style
Casual
Cosy
Trendy
Alternative
Cuisine
Asian
French
Fusion
International
Good to know
Terrace
Garden
Recognised by
We're Smart Green Guide
Recognised by
We're Smart Green Guide

The delicious details

Graspoort sits on a quiet dead end street in the centre of Mechelen, between the old fish market and the Sint-Romboutskathedraal. Graffiti covers the walls and a tropical tree made in house hangs with coloured leaves.

Head chef Thibault Van Stratum works from a classic French base and draws on Japanese and Latin American cooking. Dinner is a four or five course menu that the kitchen rewrites as the seasons turn. Vegetables are named components in every course, and the whole menu can be prepared as a vegetarian or fully plant based version when guests give notice the day before.

The cheese board comes from the Antwerp affineur Van Tricht and the oysters are the Irish Mór selection. The wine list favours small European growers, including orange wines and a Belgian bottle from Liège.

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

De Graspoort serves a four or five course tasting menu drawing on French technique with Japanese and Latin American influences. The menu is rewritten each season and built around vegetables as structural components. Every savoury course names its protein, mussels, mackerel, matjes herring, lamb or halibut, alongside seasonal vegetables. Vegetarian and fully plant based versions are prepared on request with notice the day before.

Dinner is a tasting format: four courses at €77 or five at €88, opening with a short list of bites that runs from Irish Mór oysters dressed with shiso and dashi or with ponzu and jalapeno to a maitake tempura with cashew and kimchi. The summer 2026 menu moves through mussels with Japanese curry and pointed cabbage, mackerel with cucumber, soba and buttermilk, and matjes herring with seaweed and green papaya, before a choice of lamb with broad beans and tarragon or halibut with coeur de boeuf tomato, aubergine and miso. Fish and shellfish carry the menu and meat appears once, as an alternative rather than the centre. Dessert is white chocolate with mango, sea buckthorn and yoghurt, or the Van Tricht cheese board. Vegetarian and fully plant based versions of the same menu are prepared when guests flag it at booking, at the latest the day before.

Cuisine

Asian
French
Fusion
International

Dietary options

Vegetarian options
Vegan-friendly
Dairy-free 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 · graspoort.be · not yet confirmed by the restaurant
Impact score
How this restaurant rates
2 - Engaged

The impact dimensions

Local & direct sourcing✓

Seasonal cooking✓

Sustainable animal products

Social impact

Plant-forward menu✓

Van Tricht cheese from Antwerp named; no other local suppliers documented.

The restaurant's own site and We're Smart Green Guide listing both state that the menu is prepared with local and seasonal products. One supplier is named: the cheese board on the summer 2026 menu is credited to Kaasaffineurs Van Tricht, an affineur about 25 kilometres away in Antwerp. Van Tricht's own site states that it sources cheeses from across Europe, so that relationship evidences producer proximity rather than local produce sourcing.

No grower, farm, fishmonger or butcher is named for vegetables, fish or meat. The summer menu carries Irish Mór oysters, hamachi, green papaya, cashew and mango, a visible share of ingredients from long distance. Level 2 fits: one named local relationship in one category, but not roughly a third to a half of key categories showing local or regional origin, which Level 3 asks for.

Strongest sourceWe're Smart Green Guide ↗

Menu reissued by season with summer 2026 updated in July, featuring broad beans, pointed cabbage, coeur de boeuf tomatoes and matjes herring in its short window.

The menu is published by season, the current card is titled Zomer 2026 and was uploaded in July 2026. The menu page carries a standing note that the menu is adapted from time to time, with an update stamp of 22 April 2026, evidencing at least two revisions in 2026. The dishes match the season: broad beans, pointed cabbage, cucumber and coeur de boeuf tomatoes run through the savoury courses and matjes herring appears in its own short window.

The We're Smart Green Guide listing corroborates the practice, describing locality and seasonality as the basis of all creations inspired by nature. This meets Level 3: the menu rotates at least quarterly and several dishes are clearly built around produce in season.

Strongest sourceWe're Smart Green Guide ↗

Irish Mór oysters and Van Tricht cheese board named; mostly shellfish and small pelagics.

Two animal product suppliers are named on the restaurant's own summer 2026 menu. The oysters are sold as Irish Mór, a label whose distributor describes a select group of traditional Irish oyster farmers who choose quality over quantity and work in a highly sustainable way. The cheese board is credited to Kaasaffineurs Van Tricht in Antwerp, whose own site describes ripening work built mainly on raw milk.

The menu composition lowers its animal footprint: four of the five savoury courses are shellfish or fish, three of them bivalves and small pelagic species, mussel, mackerel and matjes herring. Meat appears once, as lamb offered as an alternative to halibut rather than as the centre. No certification such as MSC, ASC, organic or a welfare label is on file, and the lamb and mussels carry no named producer.

Strongest sourceRestaurant's own menu ↗

Manager and chef are both business partners; concept framed as accessible dining experience.

Social themes appear in the restaurant's positioning without a named commitment behind them. The restaurant's own site introduces the two people who run it: a manager born and raised in Mechelen who spent nine years managing another Flemish restaurant, and a head chef who is also a business partner. In a 2023 interview the chef frames the concept as a dining experience meant to be accessible to everyone.

Nothing further was found: no employment, wage, training or apprenticeship practice, no community project, no named charity or partner organisation. Social impact is the dimension least visible to an online-only screening.

Strongest sourceRestaurant's own site ↗

Vegan and vegetarian menus available on request; Pure Plant Choices recognised by We're Smart.

The kitchen can serve plants as the whole meal, but its standing menu is composed around animal proteins. The We're Smart Green Guide lists it as a great example of Mechelen's vegetable-minded restaurants and notes that the world cuisine is also available in vegetarian or 100 per cent pure plant based menus. The listing carries the guide's Pure Plant Choices mark, signalling that vegan food is assured.

Vegetables are genuine components throughout the summer 2026 menu: kohlrabi, pointed cabbage, cucumber, daikon, broad bean, aubergine, coeur de boeuf tomato and green papaya are each named in a dish. Every savoury course on the standing menu is titled by its animal protein, and the vegetarian or plant based version is arranged ahead of service with notice required the day before.

Strongest sourceWe're Smart Green Guide ↗

Sourcing signals

✓
Direct named-farm sourcing
✓
Low-impact beverage program

Irish Mór oysters and Van Tricht cheese board are named on the menu. No vegetable grower, fishmonger or meat farm is named.

Wine list focuses on small European growers with a dedicated natural wine section including Radikon, Andreas Tscheppe and Markus Altenburger, and a large portion sourced within a short radius: Alsace, Loire, Muscadet, Rheinhessen and Südpfalz.

Visit & practical info
Address, price, and more
Address
Begijnenstraat 28, 2800 Mechelen, Mechelen, Belgium
Open in Google Maps ↗
Price
€€€
Format
Dinner tasting: four or five courses; advance notice required for allergies and dietary needs
Hours
MondayClosed
Tuesday19:00–21:00
Wednesday19:00–21:00
Thursday19:00–21:00
Friday19:00–21:00
Saturday19:00–21:00
SundayClosed
Style
Casual
Cosy
Trendy
Alternative
Good to know
Terrace
Garden
Web
graspoort.be
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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