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We speak to the head chef of Belgian restaurant Hertog Jan about their farm and the value of growing their own vegetables
This week, the Hertog Jan team is staging a three-day pop-up at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental. Best known for using seasonal ingredients grown at the award-winning modern Belgian restaurant’s own farm, we spend a few minutes with head chef Gert de Mangeleer to discuss all things seasonal, why he loves what he does, and the importance of growing quality produce.
It was my mother who inspired me with her fantastic regional cooking style. This is how I first became interested in cooking.
I love to work with vegetables as the main ingredient in my dishes, particularly those that we grow ourselves in the farm adjacent to our restaurant. My cooking style is contemporary, but based on classic techniques, with local and Asiatic influences married together.
People visit Hertog Jan to taste the very best ingredients at the right moment of their ripeness, grown in their original habitat without chemicals. It is only then that the ingredients are able to provide their authentic taste and flavour.
The success of Hertog Jan is the result of hard work, passion, team spirit and just not giving up – this is what pushes us forward in what we are doing. The young Y- and upcoming X-generations on our team are phenomenal.
I am a tomatoholic. I love cooking with tomatoes. This year, we’ve grown 102 different varieties of tomatoes from all over the world at our farm.
At our farm, we grow around 500 varieties of vegetables, herbs and edible flowers over the four seasons. In the spring, it is all about freshness and tiny premier sizes of vegetables. In the summer, the garden offers us a wealth of ripeness and diversity; while autumn is a combination of late summer vegetables and the start of roots and tubers. Wintertime is reserved for what is grown underground in our castle garden, complete with its own microclimate.
We bring as much ingredients as we can from our own garden and region to show the Hong Kong food lover the richness and finesse of our products. Since we work on finesse and not in volume, you will be surprised at how little we actually need to import – it is only about 100 kg in total for the whole three-day pop-up.
At the Hong Kong pop-up, of course it is impossible to bring all ingredients from our own farm, but this challenges me to combine our Flemish cuisine with Hong Kong influences. I hope Hong Kong diners will appreciate what we’re trying to do.
Although this is not our first time cooking in Hong Kong, we hope that guests will gain a better understanding of our philosophy, and share my love of natural cooking and respect for the ingredients. I try not to change the original quality of the ingredients, but instead underline its flavour and individual taste.
I adore the street markets and old city centre shops in Hong Kong – visiting these places helps me to learn more and understand local products and cooking styles.
