Roots

Verdict: A €€€ creative kitchen in Gent that earns its price point through restraint and technique

At the €€€ price tier, Roots sits in a competitive bracket in Gent; the same range as Souvenir and Publiek, and a tier below the €€€€ ambitions of Vrijmoed and Oak Gent. What you get for that spend is a focused creative menu built around root vegetables, tubers, legumes, foraged weeds; a kitchen that has chosen a lane and commits to it. The Michelin Plate recognition in 2025 confirms this is a kitchen operating at a credible technical level, not a neighbourhood bistro doing ambitious things occasionally. If you want vegetable-forward creative cooking in Gent without climbing to the €€€€ tier, Roots is the booking to make.

The Kitchen and Its Approach

Roots has built its identity around ingredients that many creative kitchens treat as supporting cast: beets, turnips, celeriac, leeks, the kind of edible plants that grow at the margins of cultivated land. This is not a gimmick, the approach reflects a coherent philosophy about what Belgian seasonal cooking can look like when it stops chasing protein and starts treating vegetables as the main event. The kitchen's training lineage traces through Publiek and Volta, two Gent kitchens known for technically grounded modern cooking, that grounding shows in the precision of what arrives on the plate.

Dishes documented in the venue record illustrate the style well: leeks with mussels and almonds brings together a Flemish-rooted combination with enough textural contrast to justify the technique; celeriac with egg yolk and pork throat pairs a slow, deep vegetable preparation with a rich, collagen-forward meat cut that would appeal to anyone who appreciates offal-adjacent cooking. These are not safe choices. They are combinations that require the kitchen to be confident in its seasoning and timing. The fact that the 2025 Michelin Plate recognises the kitchen suggests that confidence is warranted. A full vegetarian menu is available, which at this price point, in this style of cooking, is a genuine differentiator rather than an afterthought.

Atmosphere and What to Expect in the Room

Roots operates from Vrouwebroersstraat 5 in Gent, a city whose medieval centre is compact enough that most of its serious restaurants are walkable from each other. The venue's creative positioning and price point suggest a room pitched at engaged diners rather than celebratory groups looking for spectacle, the kind of space where the food is the theatre, the ambient energy reflects that. This is not the place to expect a buzzing room with cocktail bar energy. If you want something louder and more festive in the €€€ tier, Souvenir or Publiek might suit better. Roots, based on its positioning and the nature of its cooking, reads as a quieter, more focused experience, the kind of dinner that rewards attention.

Booking is direct. Roots does not carry the waiting-list pressure of a two-star kitchen, the Michelin Plate is a marker of quality, not a reservation crisis. That makes it one of the more accessible serious meals in Gent, a sensible first choice for food-focused visitors who want creative cooking without the advance planning that Vrijmoed or Oak Gent require. Booking a week or two ahead should be sufficient for most evenings, though weekends may warrant earlier contact.

Where It Sits in the Broader Picture

Gent has quietly become one of the more interesting cities in Belgium for creative cooking, a city that has produced serious restaurants across price points without the international spotlight that Brussels or Bruges attract. For context on what the Belgian creative cooking circuit looks like at higher price points, venues like Boury in Roeselare, Zilte in Antwerp, and Hof van Cleve in Kruishoutem represent where the best of the market sits. Roots is not competing at that level, nor is it trying to. It is making a specific case: that vegetable-driven creative cooking, executed with technique and conviction at the €€€ price point, is worth your evening in Gent.

For food-focused visitors building a trip around the city's restaurant scene, Roots works as a strong mid-week dinner, pair it with a visit to a food affair for a contrasting Asian perspective, or use Publiek as the more casual bookend to a longer stay. The full Gent restaurants guide maps the broader field if you are planning multiple meals. If you want bars and wine to fill the gaps, the Gent bars guide and Gent wineries guide are worth a look before you travel. And if you are still deciding on where to stay, the Gent hotels guide covers the full range.

Service Philosophy and Whether It Earns the Price

At the €€€ tier in a competitive Gent market, service is where restaurants at this level either justify the spend or lose the argument. The profile of the kitchen, lineage through Volta and Publiek, a menu built on precision and restraint, points to a service style that is attentive and knowledgeable rather than formal. For a food enthusiast who wants to ask questions about technique or sourcing without being made to feel like they are disrupting a ritual, that is often a better environment than a room running the full silver-service playbook. The vegetarian menu being a genuine option, not a reluctant accommodation, is another indicator that the kitchen is set up to engage with guests who come with specific intentions. At this price, that responsiveness earns the spend.

The Bottom Line

Book Roots if you are a food-focused visitor to Gent who wants creative vegetable-driven cooking with solid technical grounding, Michelin Plate credibility, a price point that does not require a special occasion to justify. It is one of the more accessible serious dinners in the city. Skip it if you are after theatrical service, a louder celebratory atmosphere, or the full fine-dining ceremony, in that case, Vrijmoed or Oak Gent are the right step up. For broader inspiration across the Belgian creative cooking circuit, Arpège in Paris and Quique Dacosta in Dénia represent how far vegetable-forward creative cooking can travel at the top of the market, useful reference points for understanding where Roots sits on a longer spectrum.