Vegetables as Protagonists

Pieter Starmans is back at the stove of August, the Vincent Van Duysen hotel folded into a former Augustinian convent in Antwerp, and his second act has quietly loosened its tie.

Chef Pieter Starmans at work in the kitchen, shot through glass, at August, Antwerp | The Aficionados

Antwerp is not a loud city by temperament, though it has its moments, and the most reliable cure for them is to step through the gates of August. The brick walls of the old convent do most of the work. Trees throw shade across the gravel, herbs and summer greenery scent the air between the tables, and the city, so insistent a minute ago, agrees to wait outside.

This summer the gardens become, once again, one of the city's more coveted addresses for the long lunch, the unhurried aperitif and the dinner that forgets to end. The real news, though, is indoors. A familiar name has returned to the kitchen.

Pieter Starmans, who ran the restaurant through its formative years and collected a 15/20 from Gault&Millau in the process, is back at the helm. Call it an evolution rather than a reinvention. The new chapter is less interested in ceremony than in pleasure: assured, sophisticated cooking, delivered without the theatre that so often substitutes for it.

The fixed culinary journey has been retired. Guests now navigate the menu as they like, picking a few plates à la carte or settling into three or four courses, which feels less like a concession than a correct reading of how people actually want to eat.

Starmans remains tied to the seasons and to regional produce, and vegetables here are protagonists rather than the supporting cast. The summer menu reads off the market: courgette with goat's cheese, peas and strawberry; razor clams brightened with tomato and parsley; sea bass crudo sharpened by fermented strawberry and verbena.

There is a quiet confidence, too, in the way refinement is married to comfort. Irish Mór oysters arrive on ice with a merlot vinaigrette. Sashimi meets ponzu, shiso and wasabi. White tripe keeps unlikely company with smoked eel and onion dashi. Each plate is considered without being fussy, the ingredients left legible rather than buried.

The mains carry the conversation on. Turbot comes on the bone with white asparagus, spinach and vin jaune. Veal sweetbreads are set against morels and wild garlic. Sea bream is lifted with artichoke, tomato and gremolata. And then the Côte à l'os Vacapunk for two, with bone marrow and confit garlic, a dish that understands the enduring pleasure of putting something substantial in the middle of the table and dividing it among friends.

The sides are held to the same standard. Barbecued wild asparagus with polenta, charred leeks finished with hazelnut, spaghettoni layered with anchovy, tomato and parmesan. Nothing arrives as an afterthought.

What sets the kitchen apart is its patience. Sauces are built from scratch, desserts are made in-house, preparations are given the time they need. It is an increasingly rare disposition in a trade forever tempted by the shortcut.

Some things, sensibly, go untouched. The Dame Blanche still holds its place on the menu, as it should, a classic that has earned its tenure through sheer repetition, and beside it the celebrated bone-in rib, another dish guests come back for.

August, of course, was never only about the food. Restored within the convent by Vincent Van Duysen, the hotel sits somewhere between sanctuary and social club. The soaring former chapel now houses the bar, where cocktails and small plates are served beneath the vaulting. Outside, the gardens make one of the city's most beguiling urban retreats, the point at which heritage, architecture and hospitality stop being separate things.

In a city well supplied with places to eat, August continues to cultivate the rarer commodity: atmosphere with something behind it. Starmans' return only sharpens the proposition. His cooking mirrors its setting, elegant and grounded and sure of itself, and the result is a restaurant that knows both where it came from and how people want to dine now.

For an Antwerp summer, that is a difficult thing to turn down.

Sunlit table setting with a vase of waxflower, wine glasses and cutlery on white linen at August, Antwerp | The Aficionados

Plate of thinly sliced Iberian ham served with fried bread at August, Antwerp | The AficionadosRed brick dining room with white-clothed tables, black chairs and a palm in daylight at August, Antwerp | The Aficionados

Red brick dining room with white-clothed tables, black chairs and a palm in daylight at August, Antwerp | The Aficionados

A table for two set among the greenery of the secret garden at August, Antwerp | The Aficionados