Taste of Texel: Vincent Island Kitchen

Planning a weekend on Texel soon? Then a little research into the island’s best culinary addresses is certainly worthwhile. At Vincent Island Kitchen in Den Burg, you can enjoy playful seasonal dishes in a relaxed atmosphere. Here, nature calls the shots.

As soon as you board the boat to the island, the wind and water spontaneously make you crave a ‘little fish snack’. Although the criticism is that more and more restaurants do not serve fish from their own waters at all, at Vincent Island Kitchen you can indulge in all kinds of delicious local produce.

Fish from the cutter
Here, they serve fish from the cutter, cockles and oysters from the mudflats. A mudflat is a sandbank formed in shallow sea. And a cutter? That is a typical little boat with which fishermen catch fish honestly, sustainably and in the right season.

This results in lovely dishes such as sweet razor clams with a delicious bite in a creamy foam, lightly acidic and topped with herbs and flowers from the garden. Or how about grilled plaice, lightly caramelised, with beurre blanc with spinach and dill?

Texel lamb and special game
Anyone who has ever been to the island will not have missed the sheep and lambs. The story goes that Texel sheep owe their unique flavour to the salty sea air, which affects the soil they walk on and the grass they graze. Moreover, the Texel sheep is a distinctive breed with relatively a lot of meat on the bone. The same applies, by the way, to the beef and game meat from the surrounding area.

That is why the restaurant prefers to serve these island treasures simply and as purely as possible: beautifully pink with a rich gravy and blanched vegetables. For example, you can choose bavette (beef flank steak) with bone marrow, leek and black garlic, or venison with roasted onion, chanterelles and a gravy with tahini.

With so much deliciousness from land, sea and air, a good surf & turf naturally cannot be missing. Such as pork belly with scallop, star anise, beetroot and daikon, or gently cooked veal tongue with oyster, runner beans and nori.

Local vegetables and salty plants
The vegetables on the menu come from small farmers in the area. Such as salty plants from the mudflats, or potatoes and asparagus from Bert Keijser in Den Burg. These products also owe their flavour to the loamy soil, the characteristic climate with relatively plenty of sun and wind, and the fact that crops on Texel may not be ‘irrigated’ because of the scarcity of fresh water.

Vincent Island Kitchen
Gravenstraat 7
Den Burg