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Overview
Average rating from 1 meal
8 / 10
Photo Views: 1,539
Restaurant Views: 3,293
Restaurant Views: 3,293
0 user have this restaurant in their Top list
1 user has this restaurant in his Wish list
Awards
- MICHELIN Guide
- OAD
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European Restaurants 2024, 44
- The World’s50 Best
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World`s 50 Best Restaurants 2024, #83
- Restaurant Ranking
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Restaurant Ranking 2024, #1502, PRO #17.00, USER #0.00
- Gault & Millau
- 3 Torques, 2021
- Gault & Millau Public Mark
- 16 / 20
Chef
Willem Hiele
Cuisine
Seafood, Creative
Foodle Reviews
on 30 Nov 2024
Through the train window to Ostend, I gaze at the endless plain that is Belgium.
I wonder what Willem Hiele’s food is.
The surfer chef, almost two meters tall, with long hair and a Viking look, who once told me he loved the beaches of my country when I first met him a few years ago.
Coming from a family of fishermen, seafood reigns supreme in his kitchen.
“My mountain is the sea,” he told me when we were talking about another chef whose identity is rooted in the mountains.
Scallops... More
Through the train window to Ostend, I gaze at the endless plain that is Belgium.
I wonder what Willem Hiele’s food is.
The surfer chef, almost two meters tall, with long hair and a Viking look, who once told me he loved the beaches of my country when I first met him a few years ago.
Coming from a family of fishermen, seafood reigns supreme in his kitchen.
“My mountain is the sea,” he told me when we were talking about another chef whose identity is rooted in the mountains.
Scallops (first in their shell with smoked plums and tomatoes, then with truffles and walnuts), clams, razor clams, mackerel, mussels (with their own miso and pumpkin), monkfish, sea bass, oysters, langoustines (with radishes and caviar) and the essencial small Ostend shrimp.
Meat plays a subtle yet thoughtful role: smoked duck paired unexpectedly with mackerel, tender hare with Trompette de la Mort mushrooms in cherry sauce, and a pristine wild goose consommé with mushrooms and apple.
And then that intriguing vegetable dish, perhaps the most original and accomplished of all, whose correct name I can’t remember, but it would be close to ‘Still life of all the fruits and vegetables of last summer’. Pumpkins, tomatoes, beetroot and figs, and perhaps something else, preserved through brining, drying, and smoking, were thinly sliced and layered like abstract brushstrokes on a small rectangular canvas.
The idea came to Willem when he saw a painting by the French painter of Belarusian origin Chaïm Soutine called ‘Carcass of Beef’.
In fact, there is little or nothing in common between it and the dish, apart from its bold, faded colours. But it was enough to awaken something in Willem, a lateral thought. Things that happen when you look outside your own bubble.
In all of this, the fire.
In the courtyard, as the day draws to a close and the light fades. In the wood-burning oven to my left and in the fireplace lined with pots, pans, and hanging fish bones. The fire he uses to impart unique textures to ingredients—those mussels!—and subtle smoke notes throughout his dishes.
No strict rules, conventions or obvious classical references. A cuisine that is intrinsically intuitive, I felt. And his own. Less
on 02 Nov 2024
Purity @restaurant_willemhiele
- Sunflower seeds, sea urchin, northsea crab -
- Celeriac & Truffle -
- Sole, chanterelles, mussels, shrimps -
- Hare & Cherries -
- Waffle & Figs -
Foodtastic experience by @willemhiele ✨
on 01 Nov 2024
Purity @restaurant_willemhiele
- Seabass & Canard -
- Langoustine & Caviar -
- Oyster & Herbs -
- Mahogany & Dashi -
- After summer carpaccio -
- Trumpets, cepes, verveine, celeriac -
Foodtastic experience by @willemhiele ✨
on 25 Apr 2019
And the final dish of this incredible meal @willemhiele restaurant was a tart with sea buckthorn & hazelnut ice cream. Swipe to see the video of Willem explaining the dish. Once again, I can not recommend this restaurant highly enough. Scroll down my FB a couple of posts to find the review and more details.
Link in bio ☝️
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Michelin Guide - (coming soon I am certain)
OAD list - 170
W50Best-
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And the final dish of this incredible meal @willemhiele restaurant was a tart with sea buckthorn & hazelnut ice cream. Swipe to see the video of Willem explaining the dish. Once again, I can not recommend this restaurant highly enough. Scroll down my FB a couple of posts to find the review and more details.
Link in bio ☝️
.
.
Michelin Guide - (coming soon I am certain)
OAD list - 170
W50Best-
.
.
.
.
#achefabroad #itravelforfood #foodie #foodies #foodporn #foodpic #foodpics #finedining #michelindining #eats #instafoodie #michelinstar #oad #worlds50bestrestaurants #worlds50best #eater #iphonexsmax #michelinguide #foodlepro #influencer #influencers #culinaryworld #belgianfoodie #bistrobruut #willemhiele Less
8 / 10
on 26 May 2018
After an amazing dinner last night in Ghent at Chambre Séparée, this morning I drove about an hour West to the coast to visit Restaurant Willem Hiele Fine Dining in the town of Koksijde.
I am amazed this place does not have more recognition from the Michelin guide. It really was a spectacular meal. Willem cooks using herbs and vegetables from his own garden, locally sourced meat and seafood only from the North Sea which is only a few hundred yards away. The food is inventive and delicious.
Even... More
After an amazing dinner last night in Ghent at Chambre Séparée, this morning I drove about an hour West to the coast to visit Restaurant Willem Hiele Fine Dining in the town of Koksijde.
I am amazed this place does not have more recognition from the Michelin guide. It really was a spectacular meal. Willem cooks using herbs and vegetables from his own garden, locally sourced meat and seafood only from the North Sea which is only a few hundred yards away. The food is inventive and delicious.
Even though Willem and his wife have been running this restaurant for 6 years now, he still spends his spare time flying off to do stages in other restaurants in order to gain even more experience. Recently he has done stages under Mikael Jonsson at Hedone in London and Bittor Arguinzoniz at Etxebarri in the Basque Country.
This goes some way to explaining why I enjoyed Willem’s cooking so much as he chose to stage under two of my favourite chefs on the planet.
Anyway, as you may be able to deduce, I liked this meal a lot and I highly recommend you visit if you are in the area, or like me, even if you are not in the area.
Thanks to Lou for the rec.
Address
Kapittelstraat 71, 8460 Oudenburg, Belgium
Hours
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday: 19:00 - 23:00
Thursday: 12:30 - 16:00; 19:30 - 23:00
Friday: 12:30 - 16:00; 19:30 - 23:00
Saturday: 12:30 - 16:00; 19:30 - 23:00
Sunday: Closed
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday: 19:00 - 23:00
Thursday: 12:30 - 16:00; 19:30 - 23:00
Friday: 12:30 - 16:00; 19:30 - 23:00
Saturday: 12:30 - 16:00; 19:30 - 23:00
Sunday: Closed
Phone
+32 58 596 221
Website
https://restaurant.willemhiele.be/
