Restaurant in Overloon, Netherlands
Bib Gourmand value, vegetable-forward, book it.
Boompjes holds consecutive Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition (2024–2025) for vegetable-led, French-technique cooking in a garden-connected dining room in Overloon. Chef Jaap Volman — trained at Bolenius, voted the Netherlands' best vegetable restaurant in 2015 — offers three- and five-course menus at €€ pricing. Booking is easy relative to comparable Michelin-recognized venues. Worth a deliberate detour for food-focused travellers in North Brabant.
Boompjes Restaurant in Overloon earns its Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition — held consecutively in 2024 and 2025 — by doing something the Dutch fine-dining circuit often overcomplicates: delivering honest, vegetable-forward cooking at a price point that does not require a special occasion to justify. If you want to spend €€€€ on elaborate tasting menus with sommelier theatre, head to De Librije in Zwolle or Ciel Bleu in Amsterdam. If you want Michelin-recognized cooking in Brabant without the formality or the invoice, Boompjes is the answer. Book it.
Coming back to Boompjes on a return visit, the first thing you notice is that the kitchen garden has advanced another season. Chef Jaap Volman trained at Bolenius in Amsterdam, which was voted the leading vegetable restaurant in the Netherlands in 2015, and that training shows in how the menu shifts with what is ready to harvest rather than what is fashionable to plate. The cooking is French-inspired in technique but Dutch in its honesty: roasted pointed cabbage with aged cheese and porcini mushrooms, beets with morel gravy and potato, turkey with celeriac, porcini and hazelnut. These are not abstract compositions. They are dishes with clear flavour logic, where a velvety consommé carries enough acidity to lift the richness of pork cheeks, and garden vegetables get the same structural consideration that meat usually commands.
The setting does the food a service without overselling it. You enter through a brasserie space , useful to know if you are arriving for a casual lunch rather than a full menu , and the rear dining room is where the more considered cooking happens. The space reads as genuinely botanical: trees, plants, and wood throughout, with the terrace running directly into Volman's kitchen garden. This is not decorative styling. The garden is the supply chain, and its proximity to the dining room gives the whole experience a coherence that is harder to manufacture than it looks. Chef Volman runs the kitchen alongside his wife Veronique, which keeps the operation tight and intentional rather than scaled for throughput.
The menu structure gives you two real choices: a three-course or a five-course vegetable-led menu. Fish and meat preparations are available alongside the vegetable courses, so this is not a venue that requires an ideological commitment to plant-only eating. What it does require is an appetite for seasonal produce treated seriously, because that is where the kitchen's confidence is clearest. The five-course format is where the cooking has room to build , each course structured around what the garden and local suppliers are producing, with the French technical grounding giving each plate more precision than a rustic country-cooking label might suggest.
For the food-focused traveller making a deliberate detour into North Brabant, Boompjes fits naturally alongside a visit to De Lindehof in Nuenen or a longer circuit taking in Tribeca in Heeze. Overloon is a small town , 4,000 people, no significant tourist infrastructure , so plan your overnight or your drive time in advance. The Overloon hotels guide is worth checking if you are making a full evening of it, and our Overloon restaurants guide covers the wider local picture. For bars and after-dinner options in the area, the Overloon bars guide is the place to start, though late-night options in a village this size are limited by design. Boompjes itself is better understood as a dinner destination that concludes the evening rather than one that precedes it.
The Google review average sits at 4.5 across 268 ratings, which is a meaningful signal for a restaurant in a town this size: it suggests consistent execution rather than a single exceptional night drawing the score upward. Repeat visits to Boompjes tend to confirm this. The cooking does not chase novelty between seasons. What changes is the produce; the kitchen's approach to it stays disciplined. That reliability is exactly what a Bib Gourmand is supposed to recognize, and here it does.
Booking is easy relative to the Michelin tier. This is not a venue where you need to refresh a reservation page at midnight three months out. A reasonable lead time is sensible for weekend dinners, but Boompjes operates at a scale and in a location where access is not the obstacle it would be at a comparably recognized restaurant in Amsterdam or Rotterdam. That accessibility is part of the value proposition: Michelin-quality cooking, without the booking anxiety or the urban price premium attached.
For context on what the Bib Gourmand standard represents in the Netherlands, it is worth noting that venues like De Groene Lantaarn in Staphorst and Brut172 in Reijmerstok occupy similar regional positions: serious cooking in non-metropolitan locations, recognized for value as much as quality. Boompjes fits that template, and arguably executes the kitchen-garden-to-plate concept with more coherence than most. If you are planning a food-focused trip through the Netherlands and want to move beyond the Amsterdam circuit, the combination of Boompjes for dinner and De Nieuwe Winkel in Nijmegen , one of the country's most talked-about vegetable restaurants at the leading end , makes a compelling two-venue case for this part of the country. See also our Overloon experiences guide and Overloon wineries guide for broader regional planning.
| Venue | Cuisine | Awards | Booking Difficulty | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boompjes Restaurant | €€ · Country cooking | Jaap Volman learned his profession at restaurant Bolenius in Amsterdam, voted the best vegetable restaurant in the Netherlands in 2015. He was given plenty of attention for vegetables. That interest remained in his own restaurant that he started with his wife Veronique. He works with organic plants and herbs that are harvested when they are ready. He processes them in a three-course or five-course vegetable menu in which, among other things, a combination of roasted pointed cabbage with old cheese and porcini mushrooms and beets with morel gravy and potato. Fish and meat preparations are also on the menu such as turkey with celeriac, porcini mushrooms and hazelnut.; As you enter, you pass the brasserie, where you can enjoy a casual lunch or snack. The space at the rear of the restaurant is like an oasis, with trees, plants and wood setting the tone. The terrace seamlessly merges with chef Jaap Volman's kitchen garden. An ambassador of Dutch cuisine, his cooking style is very much French-inspired, but his creative use of vegetables and fruit adds lightness and freshness . The velvety consommé with its subtle acidity accompanying the succulent pork cheeks was just as delightful as the vibrant medley of garden-fresh vegetables and herbs. What a way to showcase Dutch produce!; Michelin Bib Gourmand (2025); Michelin Bib Gourmand (2024) | Easy | — |
| De Librije | €€€€ · Modern Cuisine | Michelin 3 Star, World's 50 Best | Unknown | — |
| Aan de Poel | €€€€ · Creative | Michelin 2 Star | Unknown | — |
| De Nieuwe Winkel | €€€€ · Organic | Michelin 2 Star | Unknown | — |
| Fred | €€€€ · Creative French | Michelin 2 Star | Unknown | — |
| De Lindehof | Contemporary Dutch, Creative | Michelin 2 Star | Unknown | — |
Key differences to consider before you reserve.
Boompjes has a brasserie at the front of the building where you can drop in for a casual lunch or snack without a reservation for the main dining room. There is no bar counter in the traditional sense, but the brasserie format gives walk-in visitors a genuine option. If you want the full vegetable tasting menu from chef Jaap Volman, you will need a table at the rear.
Overloon is a small village, so the nearest comparable options are further afield. De Nieuwe Winkel in Nijmegen is the most direct alternative if vegetables are your priority — it holds a Michelin Green Star and pushes plant-forward cooking further than Boompjes does. For French-technique cooking at a similar Bib Gourmand price point, Fred in Amsterdam or Aan de Poel in Amstelveen are worth the drive. De Lindehof and De Librije operate at a higher price band and different ambition level.
The restaurant splits into two distinct spaces: a relaxed brasserie at the front and a more considered dining room at the rear, where the kitchen garden runs directly into the terrace. Chef Jaap Volman trained at Bolenius in Amsterdam, which was voted the best vegetable restaurant in the Netherlands in 2015, so vegetables are not a side note here — they anchor the menu. A three-course or five-course vegetable menu is the format; meat and fish preparations exist but play a supporting role. At a €€ price point with a 2025 Michelin Bib Gourmand, the value case is clear.
The brasserie at the front is comfortable for solo visitors who want a low-commitment meal. For the main dining room, solo diners can book without issue, though the format — a multi-course vegetable menu in a room designed around garden views and a kitchen garden terrace — lends itself more naturally to a pair than to a single cover. Nothing about the setup actively discourages solo dining; it just works better with company.
It works for a low-key celebration where quality matters more than occasion theatre. The rear dining room, with its plants, wood, and kitchen garden terrace, creates a setting that feels considered without being stiff. Do not expect the formality or choreography of a starred restaurant — Boompjes holds a Bib Gourmand, not a star, and the atmosphere reflects that. For a milestone dinner where the room itself needs to impress, De Librije or De Lindehof would be stronger choices.
Yes, at the €€ price point it is. A Michelin Bib Gourmand two years running — 2024 and 2025 — is the clearest external signal that the kitchen delivers quality beyond what the price suggests. Chef Jaap Volman's background at Bolenius and his use of organic, harvest-ready produce add substance to that verdict. Compared to De Librije or De Lindehof, you are spending significantly less for a meal that still shows real technique and ingredient discipline.
The five-course vegetable menu is the stronger choice if you want to see what Jaap Volman's kitchen actually does. The three-course option works if you want lighter commitment. Dishes on the vegetable menu include combinations like roasted pointed cabbage with aged cheese and porcini, and beet with morel gravy and potato — produce-led cooking with clear French technique behind it. At a €€ price point, the five-course format delivers clear value relative to comparable tasting menus in the Netherlands.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
