Marco Westmaas is a self-taught man. Until the age of 16 he lived in Australia where the sea defined his daily surroundings. Choosing the Ter Heijde beach in the Netherlands as the location for a hotel was a logical step to him. ‘The sea is surrounded by clean air and it is pure. I want to translate the lightness of this landscape in wine and foods’, says Westmaas. For the last five years he has been exploring the magical world between wine and food. Trusting his intuition he travels all over the world to discover new ingredients combining these with his favourite basic product: fish.

With fresh seaweed, yuzu and wasibi Westmaas wants to put together intense combinations of different flavours using the interaction between sweet, sour, salt and bitter without causing a roller-coaster sensation in the mouth. He appears to do that successfully, judging by his son Jagger, whose favourite dish is king crab with yuzu, pomelo, apple, citrus and rice. But Westmaas’s culinary colleagues are just as curious about the harvest of his international expeditions. In 2008 Marco Westmaas was proclaimed ‘Promise of the Year’ by restaurant guide Gault Millau. ‘Cooking lightly and healthy gastronomy are the future’, claims the hotelier.
In Elzenduin all those new ideas can meet. In the hotel ‘in order to feel at home far away from home’, and in the restaurants ‘to experience innovative flavours’.