Hertog Jan, Antwerp
This was a lunch with a friend (from this post) for my birthday while I was visiting Antwerp for a short, long weekend break. When I booked, I noticed the restaurant only opens for the first half of every month, and I thought it must be an opinionated restaurant.
The restaurant is in a separate building in the garden of a very posh hotel. In fact, ‘Hertog Jan’ actually means ‘In the garden’, quoted from my German-speaking friend. The waitress also mentioned they used to be in a different site with a much larger garden.
The dining area was a small room in a great feeling of minimalism. I did not request special event but I think the restaurant figure out when I filled my date of birth in the booking system. Hence, I got a small card for that :).
It was an omakase menu without any detail in the menu. Though we did get the menu as a souvenir. For the readers, the actual menu was below.
Menu
After a simple light soup at beginning. We immediately got three consecutive dishes with caviars. Let’s start from the second dish with caviars ‘Toro no toro‘. The chef used some off cuts from beef and white fish to simulate the taste of toro, fatty tuna. I would say it tasted fairly similar to tuna. There was some watermelon inside if I recalled. Also, it is topped with a significant amount of caviars. The dish was fun and very umami-rich. In fact, the caviar was a great ingredient rather than showing off for the sake of showing off.
'Toro no toro" of Zeeland hamachi with Holstein beef, Royal Belgian caviar and shiso
The last caviar-related dish was “Beef no beef”. This time was dry beetroot with unsalted but kombu flavoured caviars. It was very different from the traditional salty caviar. Here it was tasted slightly wetter and more oceanic flavour in general. The light kombu flavours emphasis even further on the ocean flavour. I found it was more jelly texture than popping juicy ball texture.
“Beef no beef” - dry-aged beetroot, in kombu matured Royal Belgian Caviar and sake beurre blanc
Half way of the lunch, we have been invited to the kitchen table. First of all, quoted from the waitress, the chef used the plates from his grandmother. They were indeed looked old and with some tiny cracks.
The soup was looked very home: hop shoots, a poached egg and a small amount of shrimp. The chef mentioned hop shoots was very very seasonal because it needs to be picked during a small window of a few days. The shoot was tasted like a harder and thicker bean shoot and with some beer bitter flavour. However, the simple poached egg smoothed the bitter flavour from hop while the shrimp added some meaty texture and flavour. The soup reminded me warm spring in a small cottage. In fact, the kitchen table gave me cottage vibe.
Hop shoots from Waasten, poached farmhouse-egg, hand peeled grey shrimp
The first main is wagyu beef, however, instead of a perfectly cut beef with thick and rich sauce, the chef presented and orchestrated the beef slice in a very fun way. A waiter or chef actually charcoal-grilled the beef sashimi in front of us, went back and presented the final dish. The beef was very creamy and fresh, yet it is very raw—it would not be easily accepted by many customers by itself. However, the topping black garlic, sauce, and leek wrapped inside helped a lot to mix the texture, temperature and flavour. The vinegar seasoning stood up but It was really hard to describe the overall flavour: I will say, a rich spring.
Binchotan grilled Wagyu A5 sashimi, vinaigrette of smoked eel
The next main is sweetbread. Was I a big fan of sweetbread? NO. However, I found the dish very nice cooked with chewy texture. It gave me a vibe of spring was coming, following the previous dish on beef. The sweetbread was very in small portion. I think the crispy skin made the dish easier to be accepted, if for someone never had sweetbread before, because the fried sweetbread skin gave a simple and nice fried meat flavour which mixed and neutralised the chewy and strong flavour from the sweetbread inside. There were small oysters in the sauce. They provided a different layer of salty flavour over the rich sweetbread. Separately the fresh green vegetable paired well to others part; they mostly freshened up the palates.
Crispy sweetbread, dim sum of chard and spinach, oyster beurre monté
I did want to mention the waffle! It was a super surprise. The waffle itself was actually not sweet at all, but salty and savoury from flour instead. The skin was very crispy. The actual sweetness came from the icing sugar, however, very light. The small spoon of smooth cream blended in amazingly well with the hard crispy waffle. Last the blackberry provide some fresh and sour flavour. I enjoyed the excellent execution on such a well-known food.
Brussels waffle according to gramdmother’s recipe
It was my birthday. I would say I was lucky enough to book this restaurant. All the dishes were fun! They all have some fun and emotional story. Yes, I agreed it can simply be a marketing trick. Back to the flavour and seasoning, the chef was very creative. I found many dishes hard to describe the flavours, but they all provided a strong spring vibe. I think it was a great restaurant as taste is much easier to copy than an experience. In fact, this could be one of the best restaurants for the year of 2026.
🐼 Score: 5/5
