This brasserie with a picnic spot (and pop-up wine shop) is one to know
What do you do when, because of coronavirus, you have a beautiful old building with surrounding meadows sitting empty because hardly anyone is getting married (but plenty are getting divorced…)? You turn it into a brasserie and picnic spot—and while you’re at it, add a pop-up wine shop! This clever entrepreneur built it from the ground up in three weeks—and we went ahead and checked it out for you.
‘Pleasant country estate’
When you drive into Zoetermeer, you don’t expect to find it there at all. But here you’ll find a beautiful farm dating back to 1640, right in the middle of a residential neighborhood (!) on the edge of Westerpark. This ‘Pleasant country estate’ was built at the time for wealthy city dwellers who wanted to escape the hustle and bustle of the city.
People from the Zoetermeer area know the beautiful national heritage site, which primarily serves as a wedding venue—romance at its finest. Because of coronavirus, hardly anyone is getting married, let alone throwing parties, so the building has been given a new purpose: a restaurant in the form of Brasserie 1640. Complete with grounds and a pop-up wine bar!
Entrepreneur Bert de Boer: “We have 60 weddings here a year, and they were all canceled. No one wanted to get married anymore because, well, you can’t throw a party. But we have that beautiful wedding hall, and the idea for a relaxed brasserie soon emerged. And on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, people can buy wine at the pop-up wine shop.”
Golden ladle
The brasserie and wine shop are located at the same site as the beautiful Hofstede Meerzigt restaurant, once established with Herman den Blijker. And the great thing is that chef Alain Adriaanse—once awarded the Golden Ladle by AD—also brings his signature style to the brasserie and picnic offering, alongside the restaurant. The menu features a range of dishes, such as ultra-fresh sashimi, M.R.IJ. beef burgers and fried plaice fillet with Bouillabaisse jus.
Bert: “The wine shop was an immediate hit. It was busy from day one. I walked to my car, it was incredibly hot, and I saw all those people standing outside and all those empty meadows next to the farm. That’s how the idea for a picnic came about. Why hadn’t we done it before? It simply had never been necessary. And ‘hardship teaches you to pray’; now we had to.”
Picnicking on a blanket or in your own little cabin
In the field next to the brasserie, you can now go picnicking every Saturday and Sunday in June, July and August. Relax on a blanket, or perhaps on a bench or in a charming, open picnic ‘cabin’; there are several options available, in two shifts and from €29 per person. Naturally, a well-stocked picnic basket is included! Want to escape the hustle and bustle of the city? Now you know where to go.
Brasserie 1640, Zonnenberg 8, Zoetermeer
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