Jerom

Where Antwerp's Plant-Based Cooking Earns Its Place at the Table

Antwerp's restaurant culture has long tracked the Belgian national instinct for serious food: dense wine lists, proteins treated with reverence, and sauces that take days. Against that backdrop, plant-based cooking has historically occupied the margins, positioned as a dietary concession rather than a culinary statement. The past few years have started to shift that, and Jerom, on Graaf van Egmontstraat in the city centre, is part of the evidence. When Star Wine List published its recognition in October 2024, awarding the restaurant a White Star, the citation was pointed: Chef Filip De Pauw has the plant-based cuisine mastered.

That framing matters. A White Star from Star Wine List is not primarily a food award, so when it leads with a comment on the kitchen's plant-based execution, it signals something worth paying attention to. In a city where Zilte and Hertog Jan at Botanic anchor the best of the fine-dining bracket with multi-course tasting menus and Michelin recognition, Jerom operates in a different register: contemporary in atmosphere, cosy in feel, and increasingly confident in its editorial position within Antwerp's dining tier.

The Atmosphere and What to Expect

Graaf van Egmontstraat is a residential-inflected street in central Antwerp, the kind of address that doesn't announce itself loudly. The restaurant's interior is described in critical reception as cosy and contemporary, not the clinical minimalism that some plant-forward restaurants adopt as a kind of ideological statement, but a room that reads as genuinely inhabitable. That distinction is worth making: Belgian dining culture tends to prioritise warmth and material comfort alongside culinary ambition, and Jerom appears to understand that register rather than working against it.

The approach is not ideologically austere. De Pauw's kitchen is built around vegetables, but the critical note that surfaces in the White Star citation is about elaboration: perfectly elaborated vegetable dishes. That language points to technique applied at a level where the absence of meat or fish is not felt as subtraction. In a broader European context, this places Jerom alongside a cohort of restaurants, from Lisbon to Copenhagen, where plant-based tasting formats have begun to hold their own against protein-centred equivalents. In Antwerp specifically, that cohort is still small.

How Jerom Sits in Antwerp's Dining Scene

The city's serious restaurant tier is crowded with references to Flemish produce, classical French technique, and, increasingly, Asian influence. 't Fornuis represents the European-Flemish classic end of that spectrum, and DIM Dining sits in the Japanese-Asian bracket. Bistrot du Nord handles the French traditional format. Jerom doesn't compete directly with any of them. Its competitive set is narrower: restaurants where the kitchen's core identity is vegetable-forward cooking, executed with enough discipline and refinement to warrant sustained critical attention.

Star Wine List's White Star designation, published in October 2024, is the clearest external marker available. The platform has developed a reputation across Europe and beyond for rigorous wine list assessment, and its recognition extends to restaurants where the beverage program meets a specific editorial threshold. That Jerom qualifies speaks to the wine offer as much as the food, a pairing culture that the kitchen clearly takes seriously alongside its cooking.

For reference points elsewhere in Belgium, the country's restaurant scene extends well beyond Antwerp: Hof van Cleve in Kruishoutem and Boury in Roeselare represent the three-Michelin-star tier, while Willem Hiele in Oudenburg and Bartholomeus in Heist have built reputations rooted in coastal and seasonal produce. Bozar in Brussels covers the capital's high-design end. Jerom's angle is distinct from all of them: urban, plant-focused, and operating at a price point and scale that make it accessible without being casual.

What the Recognition Signals for the Kitchen

The Star Wine List citation carries an editorial aside that is worth repeating: more should be done with this. That reads less as a criticism and more as an acknowledgment that Jerom is working in territory where the ceiling is still high. Plant-based cooking in a European fine-dining context remains underdeveloped relative to its potential, and restaurants that execute it well tend to find themselves at the front of a still-forming category rather than competing in a saturated one.

In global terms, the gap between where plant-based tasting menus sit in cities like London, New York, or Copenhagen and where they sit in Antwerp remains measurable. Jerom's White Star recognition suggests it is doing the work to close that gap locally, and doing it in a room that doesn't ask diners to treat the meal as an act of conviction. That is a more difficult balance to strike than it appears.

Planning Your Visit

Jerom is at Graaf van Egmontstraat 39A in central Antwerp. Booking ahead is advisable. The restaurant's price point is about $60 per person, and reservations are recommended. Castor in Beveren is also worth noting for those exploring the broader Antwerp province.