Novaela — Contemporary Dutch / Seafood, The Hague
Novaela earned its first Michelin star in October 2025 under Chef Daniël Duijster Gomero — a recognition of a kitchen that has built its identity around the fish and shellfish of the North Sea with the conviction that these ingredients, prepared with the lightness and balance that the best seafood cooking demands, are among the Netherlands’ finest culinary assets.
The cooking at Novaela is characterised by restraint: preparations that allow the quality of the seafood to speak clearly rather than competing with it, sauces that support rather than define, and a menu that changes with the seasons of the North Sea in the literal sense of following what the sea provides rather than what the kitchen can source regardless of origin.
The wine list prioritises the light whites that the kitchen’s seafood orientation requires: Dutch wines from the emerging Zeeland and Brabant appellations, Muscadet from the Loire, and the Alsatian whites that the North Sea fish can accommodate. The by-the-glass programme is carefully chosen.
Novaela is in Delft rather than The Hague, twenty minutes by train, and the combination of a Michelin-starred seafood kitchen with Delft’s extraordinary visual heritage — the town of Vermeer, of the blue-and-white pottery tradition, of the Nieuwe Kerk and the historic canal system — makes the journey worthwhile for any visitor who has already seen The Hague’s Binnenhof.
Best Occasion: First Date
A Michelin-starred seafood kitchen in Delft — the combination of the visual beauty of the town and the quality of Gomero’s fish cooking creates a first-date experience of genuine distinction. The twenty-minute train journey from The Hague adds to the sense of going somewhere specific and worthwhile.
Best Occasion: Solo Dining
A seafood-focused Michelin kitchen with a light, restrained cooking philosophy and a wine programme built around North Sea fish pairings is an excellent solo dining experience. Novaela treats the solo diner as the serious guest they are.