and/or

Haantjeslei cuts through one of Antwerp's more composed residential-commercial edges, a street that lacks the tourist density of the Grote Markt but carries a neighbourhood confidence of its own. Walking into and/or, the first thing that registers is the sharing-table format: plates are designed to move, to overlap, to arrive in clusters rather than in the ordered procession of classical tasting menus. This is produce-led eating arranged around a logic of abundance rather than scarcity, where the calendar of availability, not a fixed menu architecture, shapes what reaches the table.

A Kitchen Built Around the Produce Calendar

The editorial angle that explains and/or most accurately is seasonal availability, because that is the engine the kitchen runs on. Plant-based cooking, when done seriously, is more exposed to seasonality than almost any other format: there is no protein anchor to fall back on when a vegetable hits its off-season, no shortcut through a premium cut. What arrives from suppliers each week becomes, in a direct sense, the menu. Chef Karen Shu's stated vocabulary, colourful, aromatic and simple, reads less like a branding exercise and more like a practical constraint. Simplicity, in this context, means not obscuring what a carrot or a courgette or a shelling bean does when it is at its peak. Colour is a proxy for variety across the growing calendar. Aroma marks the difference between produce used at the right moment and produce that has been stored too long.

This kind of kitchen discipline has a clear reference point in and/or's formation: the influence of ABC Kitchen in New York, where chef Neal Harden built a reputation for market-driven, plant-forward plates inside a dining room that never felt evangelical about its choices. The passage through that environment left a discernible mark on how and/or positions itself, not as a corrective to mainstream dining but as a credible alternative within it. For a point of comparison in the European vegan fine-dining tier, KLE in Zurich and Légume in Seoul occupy similar ground: technically serious, produce-obsessed kitchens that have moved the category away from its compensatory, meat-substitute phase.

Where and/or Sits in Antwerp's Dining Hierarchy

Antwerp's restaurant scene spreads across a wide price range, with several addresses operating at the top of the Belgian fine-dining tier. Zilte, with its creative tasting menu format, and Hertog Jan at Botanic, rooted in Modern Flemish technique, both operate at €€€€. 't Fornuis anchors the classic European-Flemish end of that same price bracket. Bistrot du Nord offers traditional French cooking at €€€. and/or prices at €€, making it one of the more accessible serious-kitchen options in the city, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand awarded in 2025 confirms that the value-to-execution ratio has been noticed by the guide's inspectors. The Bib Gourmand category, reserved for restaurants offering good cooking at moderate prices, is a meaningful signal in a city where most Michelin-recognised addresses operate at a significantly higher spend per head.

The sharing-plate format also affects the economics. Multiple dishes ordered across a table tend to produce a per-person spend that aligns with the €€ bracket without the fixed-price commitment of a tasting menu. For a table of two or four, the format encourages range, which is exactly what a seasonal-produce kitchen wants: the more plates that move, the more of the current harvest a diner encounters.

The Competitive Context for Vegan Dining in Belgium

Belgium's restaurant culture has historically been meat and seafood-dominant, with the North Sea coast supplying the latter and the Flemish interior supplying the former. Vegan restaurants operating at a serious culinary level remain a small fraction of the overall market, and those that have secured Michelin recognition form an even smaller subset. Within Belgium itself, and/or occupies a specific niche: plant-based, sharing format, mid-market price, with documented international influence in its kitchen formation. For a broader sense of the Belgian fine-dining ecosystem, addresses like Hof van Cleve in Kruishoutem, Boury in Roeselare, Willem Hiele in Oudenburg, and Bartholomeus in Heist define the technical ceiling, but none of them operate in the same category or price tier. Bozar Restaurant in Brussels and d'Eugénie à Emilie in Baudour complete a broader picture of the country's serious dining addresses. and/or's position within that landscape is defined less by competing with these addresses and more by serving a different decision entirely.

A Google rating of 4.8 from 271 reviews is a secondary signal, but it corroborates the Michelin recognition: this is a kitchen that has converted repeat visitors, not just first-time curiosity.