Restaurant Noble. Michelin Star Eating In Den Bosch.

Restaurant Noble. Michelin Star eating in Den Bosch.

Anthea Gerrie reviews Restaurant Noble one of Holland’s finest restaurants.

Den Bosch in Holland is most famous for native son Hieronymous, the mediaeval artist famous for his huge, often scandalous psychedelic paintings. However, now it’s also on the culinary map, thanks to local food hero Edwin Kats, who has made Restaurant Noble the second Michelin-starred restaurant in Den Bosch in Holland..

Like the Jheronimous Bosch Art Centre, housed in a deconsecrated church, Restaurant Noble has a deceptively conservative home within an elegant early 20th century villa – appropriately named the Villa Illusion when it was built. But just like the fantastical creatures Hieronymous invented, Katz throws out unimaginable concept dishes bursting with strange flavour combinations you can hardly believe would work.

So the turbot with white chocolate was a taste sensation we will probably never forget, and which we ordered with confidence knowing we were in the hands of a master. Kats ran a two-Michelin-star hotel kitchen in Amsterdam before going to work overseas and then coming back to open a quite extraordinary, and very beautiful, restaurant in his native town.
Kats’s experience running top hotel kitchens in Lebanon and China shine through in a highly eclectic choice of ingredients, a determination to use the best from everywhere.

Sitting at the bar, we enjoyed fabulous Gillardeau oysters from France dressed with cucumber and a touch of gin, while other bites to enjoy with aperifis were more United Nations – Padron peppers from spain tossed in miso cream with yuzu emulsion and satay with gherkin foam. It was back to the North Sea for that fabulous turbot, which as well as white chocolate is flavoured with celeriac, hay butter and a touch of caviar.

Despite its plain exterior, the restaurant is extremely glamorous inside, and by daytime a veritable riot of colour. The entrance is particularly dramatic, skirting a glass wine store, a semi-open kitchen and a display window featuring the products Kats champions before you arrive at the shiny bar, where a stop for aperitifs is de rigeur.
Book well ahead; Noble has long been a local favourite, but the Michelin star is bound to attract a new audience of foreign foodies, who come for the art and decide to stay in town for dinner.