Chestnuts to chocolate

Van der Staak has taken something with him. ‘We are able to make chocolate from chestnuts. We discovered that by accident. We have removed the cocoa bean from the formula. We created the chocolate through fermentation and roasting. We made a lot of mistakes before we got to this point. We were initially involved in a specific form to make miso, soy sauce. When we notice that mold was giving off a peachy odor on its own, we’ve reached the chestnut. That was inedible. Someone then added a dash of cream, and it tasted exactly like chocolate. When you discover this has started with the flag off, what started a few hundred and failures beforehand. It is only very often that we succeed.’

Van der Staak works with a botanist who tells you which plants are safe to eat. He took the initiative for a food forest and that’s where we get our ingredients from. We have several gardens where we get our food from. We want to make people aware that you can eat less meat. We were very excited at the start 11 years ago, but actually we went bankrupt in slow-motion. Then we had ten guests, and future we; that is two more than last Saturday. It would have been close if we had gone out like a candle. Were it not for the fact that the most influential culinary journalist of that moment came to dinner three months after the opening and wrote an article in the Volkskrant with the headline; a dream of a discovery, with the last sentence; I had a dream. Then we were on the map.’

Best dessert of the year

De Nieuwe Winkel, as the restaurant is called, will open for periods of 3 months. ‘If you open the laptop at the right time, you certainly have a chance to win a spot.’ According to Van der Staak. ‘We are also by far the two-star restaurant in the Netherlands.’

Presenter Rob Trip tasted the ‘chocolate’ of chestnuts and was impressed. ‘It’s fantastic. The real research into chocolate Meanwhile, Chef Van der Staak told who tasted the fake chocolate first. ‘That was the Michelin inspector. We had 8 portions of the chocolate mousse and were very happy with it, but we weren’t ready to serve it yet. Then he came in, Belgian accent, coming alone, obviously. I said in the kitchen; we’re going to pass it on to him. Later on the website an article was published with the best dessert of the year.’