Locals

Where the Food Comes From First

Locals is a restaurant in Arnhem, Netherlands, known for modern Dutch cooking with local vegetables. Arnhem's central station is not the first place most diners expect to find a working farm. Yet the building at Stationsplein 1 that houses Locals operates a vertical herb farm one floor above the restaurant, supplying the kitchen with fresh herbs grown in the same structure where guests are eating. That physical proximity between production and plate is not a marketing concept here; it is a logistical fact, and it shapes what arrives on the table in a way that a supply chain running through a distant wholesaler cannot replicate. The herbs are cut, carried downstairs, and used the same day. In farm-to-table cooking, that compression of distance is exactly what the format promises but rarely delivers this literally.

Restaurants like De Groene Lantaarn in Staphorst and De Lindehof in Nuenen have built reputations around seasonal produce and regional suppliers, while venues such as De Bokkedoorns in Overveen and De Lindenhof in Giethoorn demonstrate how deeply locality can anchor a menu when the sourcing discipline is genuine. Locals operates in that same tradition, but at a price point and urban setting that place it in a different access tier from many of those names.

The Sourcing Architecture

Frank Bregman and his team run the kitchen with a sourcing philosophy built outward from the building itself. The vertical farm upstairs handles fresh herbs, meaning that the volatile, perishable component of many dishes travels the shortest distance of any ingredient in the Dutch restaurant world. Beyond the building, the kitchen sources as locally as possible, drawing on the agricultural region surrounding Arnhem and the broader Gelderland province, which produces a substantial variety of vegetables, dairy, and meat across the growing seasons.

The kitchen also draws on the influence of Niven Kunz, which adds a distinct layer to this. Kunz runs Tryptique, a restaurant that has accumulated five separate recognitions across the industry and is regarded as one of the Netherlands' sharper vegetable-focused kitchens. That influence is legible in how Locals treats produce: not as a supporting element to protein, but as the primary material the kitchen is working with. Vegetable-led cooking at this level requires more technical precision than it typically receives credit for, because the margin for error on a well-grown carrot or a precisely wilted green is narrower than on a piece of meat that can absorb seasoning or resting time to correct course.

For diners who want to see the sourcing operation directly, the vertical farm upstairs is viewable on request.

Arnhem's Dining Tier at €€

Arnhem supports a range of dining formats across price points. At the upper end, The Church and The Green Rose both operate in the €€€ bracket, the former with a creative format and the latter with an organic focus that overlaps thematically with Locals but at a higher spend per head. Konijnenvoer, also at €€€, takes a fully vegetarian approach that shares DNA with the vegetable-forward cooking Kunz brings to the Locals collaboration. At the same €€ tier as Locals, Trattoria Da Giulio occupies the Italian segment, offering a different cuisine and register entirely.

Locals sits at a position where the Michelin Plate recognition in both 2024 and 2025 signals kitchen consistency without the full star designation that would push it into a different pricing expectation. The Plate is Michelin's signal that the food is good and worth knowing about; two consecutive years of that recognition at the €€ level places Locals in a category of restaurants that punch above their price bracket without requiring the outlay of an occasion-dining budget. Within the wider Dutch context, that bracket also includes farm-to-table operations like 't Arsenaal in Deventer and Auberge de Veste in Hertogenbosch, both working in similar territory at comparable spend.

The Station Setting

Stationsplein 1 places Locals at one of the city's most transited points, directly adjacent to Arnhem Centraal. That location carries the operational advantage of high accessibility: arriving by train from Amsterdam, Utrecht, or Nijmegen drops you a short walk from the front door. It also means the dining room operates within earshot and sightline of a busy transport hub, which is a different register from a residential neighbourhood restaurant or a rural farmhouse table. The food's intensity and the sourcing rigour do not change based on the setting, but the atmosphere is urban and functional rather than pastoral, which matters if you are calibrating expectations around the farm-to-table premise.

It suggests the kitchen delivers reliably rather than intermittently, which at the €€ price point and Michelin Plate level is the baseline a repeat visitor would need.

Planning Your Visit

Locals is at Stationsplein 1, 6811 KG Arnhem, a direct walk from Arnhem Centraal station. The €€ pricing positions it as accessible for a weeknight dinner as well as a deliberate destination meal. The vertical farm tour is available on request; it is worth asking when you arrive or at the time of booking. Booking is recommended, and the restaurant is open Mon to Sat from 12 to 11 PM, and Sun from 1 to 11 PM. The dress code is smart casual.