Beautifully located at the rim of the forest of Meerdaalwoud and between the ponds of the recreational domain “Zoet Water”, at only 7 km south of Leuven, you will find the restaurant Spaans Dak. Owner Michel Uyttendaele has been the passionate chef for over 16 years now and he still enjoys preparing every dish. He is supported by Remco Kramer, who has been involved since the beginning. Since September, Jonathan, Michel’s son, joined the team and brings an innovative touch to this gastronomic restaurant. An excellent way to get to know the Spaans Dak is the theme menu, composed around a different ingredient every season such as game, lobster, asparagus, champagne, etcetera at a nearly incredible value for money. It is the chef’s attempt to take away some of the fears people seem to have towards dining in a gastronomic restaurant. The originality of the presentation together with the great price/quality ratio makes the Spaans Dak simply irresistible.

At the end of the fourteenth century, the Spaans Dak was known as the Steenbergen castle and in the following two centuries it was occupied by the van Wesele medical family from Louvain which also included the world-famous Andreas Vesalius, Emperor Charles V's court pharmacist and therefore also the castle's most famous occupant. Although the central section of the building is believed to be the remains of a fourteenth-century chapel, the present-day Spaans Dak took on its defined form in the sixteenth century and was completed in the seventeenth century. At one time, the Spaans Dak belonged to Charles V, the King of Spain, who is to thank for its name the Spaans Dak (the Spanish roof). It was later owned by the de Croy princely family, which only used the building as a hunting lodge.