Restaurants across a number of Dutch cities and towns celebrated some huge milestones on Monday, as 10 restaurants in the Netherlands received their first Michelin star. Three restaurants were also awarded additional stars, making them two-star establishments.
Monday saw Michelin officially announce the restaurants that made it into the Michelin 2022 guide, and while no new three-star restaurants were added to the list, the Netherlands has achieved a better result than in 2021.
Flore in Amsterdam, De Nieuwe Winkel in Nijmegen, and Julemont in Wittem - a village located between Maastricht and Aachen - are the Netherlands’ new two-star restaurants. Julemont’s chef, Guido Braeken, was overjoyed to hear his restaurant was going from having no Michelin stars to being a two-star establishment. "This is really madness,” he told the press.
While 13 restaurants were overjoyed by the news, other eateries were left disappointed. This year, eight restaurants found out that they’d lost their Michelin star. One of them was Valuas in Venlo, a restaurant that was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and the 2021 floods in Limburg. Chef Eric Swaghoven said the news hit his team “like a bomb,” but that they planned to do everything they could to win it back next year.
According to the Michelin 2022 guide, there are now 94 one-star restaurants, 21 two-star restaurants, and two restaurants with three stars, bringing the Netherlands’ total to 118. The Dutch capital also had lots to celebrate, as in addition to the brand-new Flore that only opened its doors a year ago, four other Amsterdam-based eateries were awarded Michelin stars: De Jewelier, Zoldering, Lars, and De Kas. Amsterdam now has 19 one-star restaurants and four two-star establishments.