Hemel & Aarde in Utrecht is a beautiful restaurant with memorable dishes
Hemel & Aarde is a beautiful restaurant with memorable dishes (oh, that dry-aged beetroot!) in Utrecht. Creative cooking takes place here, from nose to tail and leaf to root. It’s not for nothing that they have been included in the Michelin Guide.
Exceptional location
Hemel & Aarde is located in a neoclassical building on Keistraat in Utrecht that once housed a gentlemen’s club (1865). It subsequently served, among other things, as an evangelical church and restaurant Polman’s Huis. Today, it is home to a hotel – The Nox – and restaurant Hemel & Aarde. When you walk into the beautiful building, you won’t be the first person to marvel at the impressive interior with its ten-metre-high painted ceiling, vaulted ceilings and many mirrors. And impressively, despite the large space, the atmosphere is very intimate, with comfortable sofas to boot. It’s clever how the stately space has been arranged to make you feel as though you’re sitting in a living room.
On the menu
Rene van der Weijden, head chef of Hemel & Aarde and previously employed at restaurants including de Hoefslag and Karel 5, makes vegetables shine here, preferably vegetables sourced from regional suppliers. They really use every part of the products here: from nose to tail and leaf to root. Dinner consists of five or seven courses, progressing from very fresh (literally: fresh milk curd, green bean with green strawberry and currant branch) to rich, and all the dishes look beautiful in terms of presentation and composition.
The dish of Dutch lamb with wild garlic, anchovy, turnip greens, caper leaves and caper sauce is particularly delicious. It’s hard to capture its beauty in a photograph – but trust us when we say that it is incredibly flavorful. Caper leaves are something we have been seeing more and more often lately, most recently at the Greek restaurant Elea (highly recommended!). The lamb has a wonderful flavor, rich and almost velvety, while the caper sauce adds a lovely freshness.
Belper Knolle
The Belper celeriac is also special: celeriac glazed with wild blueberries, lovage, amaranth and a beurre blanc sauce, topped with Belper Knolle, a hard Swiss cheese with a strong, spicy flavor that is disguised as a truffle and freshly grated over the dish.
Best dish: dry-aged beetroot
The signature dish is also our favorite dish of the evening: beetroot with yeast, smoked almond, fig leaf and Redlove apple. The beetroot is very chewy, almost reminiscent of wine gums, and the yeast-based sauce is deliciously umami, with a crunch from the smoked almond. Be sure to ask for some extra bread right away – wonderful sourdough bread from De Bakkert – to mop up your plate. Delicious!
Hemel & Aarde: also open for breakfast
The restaurant, with notably skilled and friendly staff, is open from Tuesday through Saturday. And for anyone who really wants to start the day well: Hemel & Aarde is now also open for an extensive breakfast; at 07:00 on weekdays and at 08:00 on weekends. For now, lunch is only available on Fridays.
Hemel & Aarde, Keistraat 8, Utrecht
