Hof Van Cleve

Hof van Cleve is a fine-dining restaurant in a farmhouse among the fields of Kruishoutem, in the Flemish Ardennes south of Ghent. Its name means the yard of the Cleve family, who lived on the farm until the late 1960s.

The house was a simple country restaurant when Peter Goossens bought it in the late 1980s, on the condition that he would not serve a tasting menu for the first five years. Goossens had trained at the hotel school Ter Duinen in Koksijde and then in Paris at Le Pré Catelan and Lenôtre. He turned the farmhouse into a fine-dining restaurant in the early 1990s, cooking Belgian and French dishes with touches of Asian flavor, and his wife Lieve Fermans ran the dining room.

The Michelin Guide gave the restaurant its first star in the mid-1990s, a second a few years later and a third in 2005, when Goossens became the youngest Belgian chef to hold three. For many years it was the only Belgian restaurant with three stars. Goossens named two dishes as his favorites: a young pigeon from Anjou served with bacon and truffle, and a turbot from the grill finished with a lobster béarnaise. He also presented cooking programs on Flemish television and led Belgium’s team for the Bocuse d’Or.

Goossens left at the end of 2023, and Floris Van Der Veken, who had been chef de cuisine under him, took over the restaurant at the start of the following year. The wine list has long been a strength of the house: it won awards for its wines and its Champagnes in the 1990s, and several of its sommeliers were later named the best in Belgium.