The market gardener is ultimately the first cook

How is Entropy a continuation of your NPO project?

It's a restaurant pursuing zero waste, constantly looking to add value to the product. We've done that from the beginning. It's kind of a common thread with my questions about food waste. I didn't go through chef training, but that gives me much more freedom. For a year now we have been cooking “just” vegetables - with 3% butter and eggs.

My kitchen is plant-based and I work with vegetables whole - the root, the stem, the leaf, the flower.... It is 100% vegetable and that is why it is so important to choose your suppliers carefully.... We have time to choose what we really want on our plates. The idea of partnering with micro-farms like this is really important because it means we can get closer to our suppliers. You can form a partnership, make a long-term commitment, pre-finance crops. It's important to know what you're getting as a product. You have to be aware that there may be a problem somewhere, that's nature. But it's important to be there at that stage.

A chef is nothing without the products that come in, and it is the gardeners who produce them. In fact, they are the first cooks. In the end, we are more or less at the mixing table. It is important to be aware of this and to make people aware of this. A restaurant is a place to share, but it is also a place to learn. Our job as chefs is to convey messages. At Entropy, that's exactly what we try to do.