Hertog Jan

Hertog Jan's new Antwerp location opened in 2022 after the closure of the original three-star Zedelgem restaurant. Chef Gert De Mangeleer and sommelier-partner Joachim Boudens had moved to a farm-to-table model on the Hertog Jan Grange before relocating the fine-dining operation to a converted townhouse on Oudaan in central Antwerp. The restaurant earned a Michelin star in 2023 and was included on the World's 50 Best Discovery list in 2024.

The cooking is contemporary Flemish with the most specific vegetable programme in Belgium. De Mangeleer's Hertog Jan Grange — an organic farm outside Bruges — supplies the restaurant with 80%+ of its vegetables, herbs, and fruits, with the day's menu dictated by that morning's harvest. Signature dishes include a beetroot-with-smoked-eel that has been on the menu since the Zedelgem days, a turbot with old-variety cabbage and yellow wine, and an Arctic char with reduced mussel cream. The format is a single tasting at dinner — five or seven courses — with a short à la carte at lunch.

The dining room seats 32 across the ground-floor space and the first-floor private room (The Hertog Room, capacity 10). Service is led by Joachim Boudens, whose wine list of 1,800 labels is one of the deepest in the Benelux. The atmosphere is quieter and more conversational than The Jane; Hertog Jan is the restaurant chosen by Antwerp's industrial and legal class for closing-of-deal dinners.

Lunch menu is €110 for three courses. Dinner tasting is €180 for five or €280 for seven. Pairings are +€140. The private Hertog Room is available for groups of up to 10 with a €3,000 minimum spend.

Hertog Jan is the Antwerp deal-closing restaurant. Three factors: the private upstairs room for the signing dinner, the deep wine list for the gift-bottle gesture, and the vegetable-first menu that works for a mixed dietary room (at least one guest at any serious dinner now requires a non-meat option). Boudens's sommelier programme is the differentiator; the wine recommendations at Hertog Jan are better-calibrated to the dinner's agenda than at any other Antwerp restaurant.