time for change:
100% focus on Domein Bergen
After 11 beautiful years, our Dutch Cuisine restaurant on the Bloemgracht has come to an end.
And that hurts quite a bit. Because it’s a beautiful job. L’invité was a small but very successful restaurant. I would have liked to have given it to a good successor, but that did not work out.
From wild plan to intimate restaurant
in 2012 we actually started L’invité as a pop-up restaurant. I was still doing recruitment & selection for the hospitality industry and we had thought of letting a new chef and a new maitre run their own restaurant every month for a year.
Nice idea, but totally dramatic in terms of execution: I was troubleshooting all the time. I was so happy when we were able to shake hands with number 12.
Nevertheless, we continued, from then on with a permanent team. We did two more big pop-up projects: SAIL Amsterdam in 2015 and ART Rotterdam in 2017.
In the meantime I had become a professional chef myself and later also a host and sommelier. I no longer had to manage, but just worked in the restaurant myself. That was actually the best time.
In 2021 I wrote ′′ Diary of a Restaurateur ′′ in which I shared my best stories as a restaurant entrepreneur.
Restaurateur becomes farmer
and of course: this is another wild plan. At a time when farmers in the Netherlands are kindly, but increasingly urgently asked to downsize or even end their business, we are happily embarking on this new agricultural adventure. An exciting new step.
Fortunately, we have a lot of support. Domein Bergen now has more than 1000 members. And that is important because we will work exclusively for them.
We are building a sustainable member vineyard and we are planting a gastronomic food forest. And our members are always welcome at our beautiful estate in Bergen, 30 km north of Amsterdam.
And that is precisely the new formula: no commercial sales. Everything we produce, we distribute among our members. With 2500 members we should break even. We’re almost halfway now. You are therefore very welcome to join this special and sustainable initiative. You can participate at www.domeinbergen.nl.
Thank you for everything
I would like to thank everyone who has been involved with L’invité as a guest, employee, supplier or neighbor. We had a great time, we are ready for new adventures
See you soon!
Sico
Sico de Moel
