Restaurant Hemel & Aarde

The good: Restaurant Hemel & Aarde is an aesthetically beautiful restaurant. A high ceiling with ornaments that are excellently (interactively) lit gives you the feeling of being in another world. The service is of a good standard; First of all, big kudos to the sommelier. The superhero of this restaurant; a sommelier to come back for. Rarely have I experienced wines paired so well that it was the wine that lifted the dish to a higher level instead of the other way around. Better than many 2-star places I've eaten at. The service is well trained in the menu, wine list, table etiquette and most table ladies and gentlemen know how to find the right balance in terms of what each guest 'needs' in terms of approach. The place looks clean, the welcome is warm and the chairs are comfortable. There is sufficient distance between the tables. Dietary requirements and allergies such as gluten and lactose intolerance can be taken into account. The bad: The only points of criticism I would like to make about the service: - the enormous pace in serving the wines and dishes. At one point I had three course glasses of wine on my table. I come here for dinner one evening. Adding a little more rest between courses increases anticipation and helps with the tasting. - The non-alcoholic package was relatively pricey and the flavors were not always in balance. E.g. the drink with Mexican pepper was far-fetched with this dish and was unanimously compared by us to lemonade with Tex-Mex herbs. Two of the seven non-alcoholic drinks were surprising and tasty. For that price (almost as expensive as a wine arrangement) we expected a little more. Especially when you see what fantastic wine-food combinations are made. The toilets are clean; it was just a matter of finding where to put the wet towel after drying hands (answer: in the hallway). This could be a little more intuitive for this level. The ugly: We chose the 7-course summer menu + wine arrangement, preceded by a number of amuses. Amuses were spot-on. The sourdough and homemade brioche were delicious. The 7 courses were excellent in terms of presentation and portion size; However, in our opinion the execution is not entirely flawless. 'Kingfish and oyster', slowly cooked 'beetroot' and 'langoustine with canteloupe' were tasty, but all had quite a bit of acid. However, the wines save the dish more than once. 'Bull zucchini with za'atar', 'farm quail' and 'sweetbreads with peanut mole' were not well balanced taste-wise and (much) too high in taste/too salty, which lost the taste of the key ingredient. A shame because the combinations were interesting. The summer king dessert craved more creaminess, which would have done much better justice to the sourness of the fruit coulis and the hardness of the pine nut and rosemary. The verdict: What remains for me is the price-quality ratio. We had to pay a total of just over 180 euros. If we add everything up, in our opinion the price is (too) high, especially because a number of dishes were not perfect in terms of execution, the pace of serving was not completely balanced, and the non-alcoholic arrangement was not up to standard. These are Michelin prices, while the level is not yet up to par in terms of taste. (saying nothing about the presentation, entourage and perfect wines). Therefore not (yet) the maximum number of stars. I would like to come by again in a while to give it another try.