He was completely done with Beluga, the restaurant in Maastricht that he cooked to two stars. Fifteen kilometers away, Hans van Wolde (Rotterdam, 1967) found a dilapidated farm in the village of Reijmerstok in the middle of the subdued Limburg nature. There he thought he would start a simple restaurant. But things turned out very differently. Text: Bart-Jan Brouwer
Online editing: Mical Joseph
Image: Esther Quelle You cannot go much further south within the country's borders. Reijmerstok, a village with 525 souls, is even below Maastricht. This is where Hans van Wolde started his next life. Who the RTL series Brut, dreams under great pressure watched on television, knows what kind of ruin he ended up in. Nothing of that can be seen anymore. Mud and asbestos have made way for sleek design. Through the natural colors and materials and the Scandinavian-style furniture, the authentic elements and contours of the Limburg farm are still clearly visible. Maastricht designer Niels Maier has focused on raw and sturdy, including a copper bar, rough wooden elements and a black metal fireplace. At the same time, the interior looks light and fresh through the use of white wood and beige-colored furniture and beautiful light. Eye-catchers are a large moose head on the wall, a full ripening cupboard with pots of kohlrabi, tubers and kiwi berries, man-sized grassmen on the beams, a special four-panel that artist Mike Pepels (also from Maastricht) has built from salvaged antiques, and the steel staircase from the lounge to the mezzanine, where the dining room is located and an annex of the kitchen for finishing dishes. No expense has been spared on the furniture. According to Hans, he could have bought a Porsche for the money invested in the patio furniture alone.
Impulsiveness
In 1994, Hans moved to Maastricht because he met a girl there. “We were going to France together to work there. But all that didn't work out. One day I met Petro Kools, a former colleague from Rotterdam (nowadays he runs star restaurant Da Vinci together with partner Margo Reuten; ed.). He worked for Toine Hermsen in Maastricht, that's how the ball started rolling. I ended up working there for four years. I felt completely at home in Maastricht, in Limburg. I was finally allowed to be myself, not the rush of the Randstad. Toine mainly taught me about the beauty of food. It's not just about the presentation on the plate, but it should also be rich and tasty. With beautiful flowers on the table and the right music in the background. If he had not met his second wife, he would not have had a nice retirement financially. Toine gave everything away, couldn't calculate at all. He could cook well, but earn poorly. His second wife kept an eye on the finances.” After four years of cooking under the tutelage of Toine Hermsen, Hans felt he was ready to stand on his own two feet. With his new love, Daniëlle de Boer, they would take over her father's business. “But then, walking through the city, we came across a restaurant. “Shall we dare?” I asked. We bought it very impulsively and Beluga opened in 1998. I have always followed my intuition and never let it deter me from my path. That impulsiveness has sometimes cost me a lot of money over the years, but it has also shaped me.”The Very Hungry Caterpillar
When he sold Beluga Loves You to his former sous chef Servais Tielman at the end of 2018, he could fully focus on his new project in Reijmerstok. It had to be a simple establishment: “Six rooms with a small restaurant, that's it. But then came the story of the scent circle. Have you seen the documentary? The scent circle is already discussed in the first episode. All plans are complete, but the municipality revokes the permit a week before the renovation was due to start, because the restaurant would be located just within the scent circle of the adjacent farm. I had never heard of that before. Long story short: it had to be completely different. Yes, and then the Hungry Caterpillar came up in me and I went a little further and further, it became a little bigger and bigger.” And it didn't exactly go smoothly...I leave there is nothing! The roof turned out to contain asbestos. So it had to be renewed, an additional cost of €1,5. Withdrawing financiers, angry neighbors, lawsuits, excavation work that led to a major leak... I've had quite a few blows. But you know, I'm kind of a soldier, a commando. You can kick me sixteen times, you won't get me down. Because I am very positive by nature. You can give up or try to be creative. And in the end it only has to do with money, right? I had allocated 2 million for the renovation, but that was a bit too optimistic a calculation. The amounts kept increasing: 2,5 million, 3 million, 3,2 million, XNUMX million… Where does this end?
In the meantime, I slept above the farm, without heating, and showered among the construction workers. But I did it all. You just have to arrange money. In the end it cost me almost 3,8 million. Well, then I just have to work a few more years. I've always thought: I'm on the plane, I have to make sure I get to my final destination – getting off in between is not an option. I still have that feeling every day. I'm not stressed either. Zero. Why would you stress if you know it will be over next week? Of course there have been moments when I thought: this is where it ends. That mainly had to do with my staff. I felt really bad that I had to leave my club in Beluga Loves You. I didn't want to say goodbye, it's my family. I promised they could all come along. But at one point I was so pissed off that I thought I had to say goodbye to them.” Fortunately, it didn't come to that and he was able to take his whole family to Brut172, as the restaurant was baptized. “Brut refers to beauty, to the rawness of the Mergelland, to simplicity, to being yourself and is also a hip hint to our culinary ambitions. The number 172 refers to the number of meters the farm is above sea level.”Total experience
Hans no longer wants to be the man who decides everything, he especially wants to give young talents a chance. “I am here purely to pass on my knowledge, I no longer do anything for myself. The boys and girls in the kitchen have to do it. You know, the chefs back then didn't do very well with us at all, did they? They transferred a lot of knowledge and taught us how to work hard, but they also ruined the catering industry a bit - it was all about the ego and the guest. That is why the idea has become prevalent: if you can't do anything, just go into the catering industry. I find that ridiculous. Catering is the best profession there is! It's a calling. You can put all your energy and creativity into it, you can do something different every day. While our chefs made us work eighty hours with typhoid fever. Why should a very good chef earn less than a dentist? My mission in the coming years is to change the catering industry in such a way that everyone who works in it has a good time together, enjoys enough free time, does not work towards a burnout and earns well. Why would you only charge 7,50 euros for a club sandwich on a terrace? Make the guest pay double. At least then you can attract decent staff. I will work for another ten years and then only coach.” His pupils will be told, among other things, that they have to communicate with the dishes, with the flavors. And that they have to listen to the guest. “I often go to restaurants where there is no communication, where people are only busy for their ego. But the guest doesn't see that, it's not about that ego. They want warmth, love, coziness and care. You cannot eat from a beautiful plate alone, as Toine Hermsen taught me. It's not just about that pot of food. The lighting, the furniture, the crockery, the music that is played... It's about the total experience. So that at the end of the evening you say: 'I will never forget this.'”
Want to read the entire interview with Hans? Order the MASTERS Magazine now. The spring issue of MASTERS celebrates regained freedom after two years of corona. The value of this is underlined by developments in eastern Europe, where the freedom of an entire people is at stake. We live in a new reality, but we can make plans again, go out for dinner, meet people. The world is turning again! Only: which way? Time for new bridges, new initiatives. What this edition of MASTERS offers inspiration for.
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