Fine Fleur

Scallops cut for a quiet signature

Scallops arrive at the bench as tartare, cut cleanly and set with chives, black truffle and button mushroom. Jacob Jan Boerma, Chef at Fine Fleur in Antwerp, sets that line of restraint inside the Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp, where the kitchen works in view through smoked glass. His name brings a particular discipline to the room: seasonal and regional products, careful composition, and a taste for acidity that keeps richness from settling too heavily on the plate.

Boerma’s public lineage runs through De Leest, where he became chef and owner in 2002, and through The White Room by Jacob Jan Boerma in Amsterdam, where his signature is tied directly to the restaurant’s identity. Fine Fleur opened in 2021, then received its Michelin star in January 2022. The Antwerp work does not need to repeat an earlier house. It takes the method forward in another setting, with Belgian produce, seafood, herbs, spice and a modern French frame. The room asks for polish, but the cooking is held closer to the hand than to ceremony.

A tasting menu built on acidity and sauce

The program moves through a tasting menu, with formats published as 4, 5, 6 or 7 courses depending on the occasion. Its most legible signature is the scallop tartare with black truffle: jelly, frothy mousse and zesty crème working around the shellfish, then a truffle-sweet vinegar dressing to pull the dish tight. Langoustine sits in the same register, a clean piece of seafood given enough structure to carry a course without heaviness.

The kitchen’s method rests on contrast rather than display. Local sourcing gives the plates their footing; global influence supplies pressure points, the spice, herb, sauce or acid that changes the angle of a familiar ingredient. Caviar-enriched courses and truffle with Jerusalem artichoke appear as supplements in the restaurant’s own menu language, but the deeper habit is balance. Rich tastes are allowed in the sequence, then cut back by freshness. The wine program is treated with similar seriousness, and the list holds White Star approval from Star Wine List as of October 2024.

Smoked glass between the room and the pass

The room has the serenity of a restored house rather than the softness of a club. Hard surfaces give it a lively edge, and the smoked glass lets the pass remain partly visible without turning the kitchen into theatre. Plates move from that obscured station into an intimate dining room, where formal service keeps pace with the tasting menu and the counterpoint of seafood, sauce and acidity.

Fine Fleur belongs to the Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp, a hotel set in a restored historic monastery on Lange Gasthuisstraat. That history matters most when it stays in the background. The old walls hold a contemporary room, the open kitchen gives the work a pulse, and the craft stays with the plate in front of the guest. The tartare holds the first signature of Fine Fleur: scallop, chive, black truffle, button mushroom and vinegar dressing.