about
Searching for ingredients, finding recipes, practising in the kitchen, tasting, inviting friends, setting the table, picking flowers, folding napkins, opening the perfect bottle of wine.
Laughing together and sharing important moments. Our lives take place in the kitchen and at the table. And we enjoy sharing it with everyone.
With Pompette, we invite you into our kitchen and to our table. For us, cooking is about feeling, creativity, discovery and surprise. But above all it is about sharing and being together. It is the core of our menus, the network of people we work with, the products we cook with and the events we organise.
À TABLE!
Arie
Ever since I was a child I have been obsessed with restaurants, hotels and the small little universe they offer to their guests. A feeling of comfort and freedom like you can only experience when it is done just right, a sort of weightlessness at the table created by food, ambiance, wine and service. Our goal is to bring that feeling to wherever we work.
After years of being a restaurant owner and wine merchant, in 2022 we decided to sell the wineshop and take the big step and move to France. Marieke, our dog Lou and I are living our dream. Working and living in one of the most dreamy landscapes in Europe while renovating our home in Céreste.
Since 2022 we started to share our love for wine, food and hospitality. First at home with parties for friends, until these became nights where everybody would invite people to. Escalating to sometimes up to 50 people, of whom half we did not know. Eating, drinking, meeting, gathering and laughing.
In 2023 we decided to turn this into something of our own, Café Clandestin. We organize pop-ups in the region at fun locations, sometimes in restaurant setting and sometimes with big farm tables and food to share.
These lunches and dinners brought us in touch with many amazing people who now form our base of clients, partners and suppliers. We hope to keep growing this circle of people and experiences that has become our life with Pompette.
marieke
Behind every force of nature lies a quiet power that keeps the engine running. Like Arie, I attended Hotel Management School and I have spent most of my life working in the hospitality industry and in the kitchen.
Feeling that I needed a new outlet for my creativity, after 15 years in restaurants and kitchens I took a leap into the unknown and enrolled in a writers’ academy. There I learned to write poetry, short stories, and essays.
With these new skills under my belt, I began to focus more on storytelling, design, and creative writing. The pop-ups, building Pompette, and our dream of starting a home-based cooking studio bring everything together: cooking, creativity, and thinking about food—its role in our lives and in the lives of everyone we met in France.
Moving here has given us an enormous boost when it comes to food: cooking with the seasons and using what nature has to offer. Give me an hour off work and I will take our dog out fot a big walk and to hunt for cherries, olives, walnuts, and all other nature has to offer. I love making sourdough, jam, chili oil, ice cream, cakes, brioche, and all other things you can’t eat too much of.