About us

We: Willem-Jan Hendriks and Kirsten Eckhart met each other twenty-five years ago in a restaurant at Bloemendaal where we both worked.
Only after eight years of working together we’d fell in love and the idea of opening a small lunch restaurant together started to grow.
After searching for one year we found a small place in the middle of the city centre in the Taksteeg.
Looking through the window we both knew directly: this will be our restaurant.
After a lot of preparation we opened, expecting a great number of people the place was very quiet. Thinking back at this moment we where quite naive, we didn’t advertise anywhere, social media didn’t exist yet and only a small group of close friends knew we’d opened Gartine.

After the second week we truly hoped for more people in our restaurant, but it was still very quiet. One morning we nervously gave our business card to Johannes van Dam, a very high esteemed restaurant reviewer. To our great liking he heard about our small lunch restaurant, just a street away from his own home, where the owners served vegetables and fruit form their own garden. Not much later a beautiful review appeared and many more followed.

Gartine became popular and up on to the present day people visit from far abroad to have a taste of a well-cared lunch at Gartine.

Two years ago we made a well thought decision to be open four days a week instead of five. This way we can give full attention to the restaurant, more time in our kitchen garden and Bed and Breakfast.