GAST is one of those very unique initiatives that makes you feel very proud to be from Brabant. A province known for it’s hospitality and ability to enjoy food and therefore life. It’s no surprise that they’re European Region of Gastronomy 2018.
GAST is a high-quality pop-up restaurant housed in a former chapel in Den Bosch. The restaurant will run for 24 months and in that time 24 chefs from Brabant will get a turn to surprise you with their take on food.
The first chef to kick-off GAST is Soenil Bahadoer, master chef at two Michelin star restaurant De Lindehof in Nuenen.
Nuenen is a small town in Brabant near Eindhoven and is quite famous across the world for one thing: Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh lived in Nuenen for a few years and painted his masterpiece De Aardappeleters (The Potato eaters) in Nuenen.
Chef Soenil Bahadoer gave us his culinary take on Vincent van Gogh in a 5 course dinner, that was actually a 9 course dinner!
We had no less than 3 amuses before the real dinner started. The first amuse bouche was this potato takari.
The second amuse bouche that Soenil Bahadoer and his team made for us was this blini with curry and potato. You can see the potato eaters theme in the menu right?
The third amuse bouche was this panna cotta with horseradish. Even the colors of the dishes reminded me of the paintings of van Gogh.
I can’t believe this was officially only the first course, I already had 3 delicious dishes. This starter is a flan of cauliflower with a coconut curry sauce and curry ice cream. Yes indeed, curry ice cream! Doesn’t this dish look like the Sunflowers of van Gogh?
The second dish was this crunchy rice bowl with truffle. It tasted a bit like risotto. Want to try something new? Try my quinoa risotto recipe.
The third course was vegetarian rendang. Rendang is a spicy meat dish from Indonesia, Soeniel Bahadoer made a vegetarian version for me with cabbage and ginger beer ice cream. A very creative and tasty dish!
Course number four! Soeniel prepared artichoke in different ways for my vegetarian version. It’s served with a sauce based on sumak. You might know Sumak from Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes, it’s a powder made from dried berries.
Did you know that Vincent van Gogh really liked Absinthe? Soeniel made this dessert with ocoa chocolate, pandan and absinthe. Ocoa is a distinctive dark chocolate and pandan is a palm-like plant (you might know it from pandan rice). On the chocolate in the front you’ll see an image of the van Gogh kerkje (church) in Nuenen, as van Gogh painted it.
As you’ve probably understood by know, having dinner at Gast in the Maria Chapel is a real experience!
In April chef Dennis Middeldorp from restaurant Sense in Den Bosch will serve a menu based on ‘De tuin der Lusten’ (the garden of earthly delights) from Jheronimus (Jeroen) Bosch.
You can read more about their upcoming dinners on this page.
GAST is just one of the many initiatives to celebrate Noord-Brabant European Region of Gastronomy 2018. You can find all the activities at Brabantcelebratesfood.com.
Going to Den Bosch? Check all my food favorites here.
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