About Haricot.
Rechtstraat 88a sits in Wyck, the right-bank district of Maastricht that has emerged from its working-class origins into the city's most creative dining quarter. Haricot. occupies what its chef and founder Mathijs describes simply as "the first catering building on the street" — a modest claim for a restaurant that has attracted Michelin Guide recognition and Gault&Millau attention with the kind of quiet assurance that marks kitchens run by people who know exactly what they are doing.
The three founders share a background in De Librije, the three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Zwolle that has produced more distinguished Dutch chefs per kitchen than almost any other establishment in the Netherlands. What Haricot. has chosen to do with that inheritance is instructive: not to replicate De Librije's ambition or its scale, but to distil what matters — product quality, technique, hospitality — into a restaurant that is accessible without being compromised. The woodwork on the walls, the atmospheric lighting, the visible kitchen at the back: the room works in the way that Brussels café interiors work, which is to say that it makes guests feel immediately at ease without explaining why.
The menu format is a set menu of five, six, or seven courses, with the option of luxury additions at each level. Rather than asking guests to navigate endless choices, Haricot. makes the choices for them — a curated progression that reflects what the season has made possible and what the kitchen wants to say. The wine programme, overseen by sommelier Shiva, ranges across French regions with the confident selectiveness of a team trained to care. Paired glasses are available; the wine list rewards exploration.
French cuisine at Haricot. is treated as a living tradition rather than a museum piece. International touches appear precisely where they add something: a coconut foam here, a nori element there, Iberian ingredients alongside Burgundian technique. The result is not fusion but evolution — French fine dining in 2026, interpreted by a team young enough to question the conventions and trained rigorously enough to respect them.
Haricot.'s set menu format is the ideal solution for the team dinner coordination problem: no one agonises over the menu, no preferences create division, and the progression through courses gives the evening a natural structure. The dining room's wood-panelled warmth and intimate scale create the particular atmosphere that makes professional groups feel genuinely celebratory rather than merely corporate. Wyck's character — younger, less formal than the Jekerkwartier — means the evening can relax into genuine enjoyment rather than staying locked in business-dinner decorum. For a team that has earned a celebration, Haricot. delivers it without pretension.
The seven-course menu with luxury additions is, structurally, a celebration: each course is an event, each transition marks the progression of an evening that someone has chosen for a reason. Chef Mathijs and the team at Haricot. welcome advance notice of special occasions — the kitchen responds with thoughtful gesture rather than generic confection. The Gault&Millau recognition and Michelin Guide listing confirm that a birthday dinner here comes with genuine culinary substance; the warmth of the room and the sommelier Shiva's personality confirm that substance does not require stiffness.