Restaurant  Taste in Leuven
A delightful bohemian and gastronomic taste-sensation

Master chef Bart Tastenhoye and hostess Dorotée Hoste welcome you to Restaurant Taste. It’s their very own adventure.

When cooking is your passion and you’ve trained at the Ter Duinen hotel school, then making culinary creations daily in the Taste kitchen is the only logical outcome. The fervent and kind Dorotée, a lover of the carefree life, likes to welcome her guests free of all social convention.

‘It makes me very happy to see Bart living his restaurant dream. That is love.’ Dorotée Hoste, Restaurant Taste hostess.

 Culinary delights at Taste, bohemian chic in a beautiful historical building.

The tastes blend surprisingly well, and the details make all the difference in this restaurant. It is marked by a balance between creativity and classicism, with the décor being both tasteful and contemporary.

Three other staff members complete this strong and well-oiled culinary team: George Zara, an IT specialist and sous-chef of Romanian origin; Gwen Dewaet, woodworker, chef de partie and a cook with passionate knife skills; and the meticulous and enthusiastic Michelle Malec, who oversees the dining room.

North Sea Chefs count Bart Tastenhoye as a member of its research team.

Bart has a tattoo of the North Sea Chefs logo on his arm – you don’t get more fanatical than that! But, as Dorotée says, no pain no gain. The NSC is on a mission to match supply to the demand for lesser-known and less popular bycatch and fish, caught by Belgian fishers. It’s all about passion, a sense of responsibility, professionalism and love.

‘We have to learn to eat what the fisherman catches. They cannot just catch what we want to eat and throw the rest away.’

Pineo on the Restaurant Taste menu. The very best choice, says sommelier and hostess Dorotée.

‘We worked together with Belgium’s best-known water sommelier, Roland Vanden Abbeele, to select our water from a list of ten different waters,’ says Dorotée, who selects Taste’s wines together with wine sommelier Seppe van Beuren. ‘Ultimately we settled for Pineo artesian water. Why? The four biggest reasons were the stylish light-blue and no-frills bottle, the neutral and fresh taste that perfectly matches all our wines and dishes, the fact that the bottle is returnable for a deposit, making it environmentally friendly, and the fact that it is a natural mineral water that is not widely available. Our decision turned out to be a good one, as our customers frequently give Pineo the compliments it deserves.’

As Emoto Masaru, the Japanese scientist who conducted a world-famous study into the memory of water and its energetic properties, states:

‘Revitalised tap water using osmosis does not result in beautiful crystals in the water. Water obtained through osmosis is dead water. It lacks life force.’

Taste: from Michelin start to cooking for the Royal couple.

Restaurant Kelderman in Aalst received its first Michelin star in 2016 under the stewardship of Bart Tastenhoye, and in 2017, now chef in his own Restaurant Taste, Bart cooked for the Belgian Royal couple during their five-day official visit to India.

Taste has a single menu that is always based on seasonal availability. Dinner consists of four to five courses, while lunchtime diners can choose between one to four courses. Vegan is never a problem, and the Taste team takes allergies into account. Dessert is essential, and is always heavenly.

Info: Restaurant Taste, Naamsestraat 62, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.

Tel 00 32 499 27 77 406  Reservations? Table Fever or on their website www.leuventaste.be