Mearkas restaurant with rooms in Eastermar

Our verdict

Dining and staying at Mearkas

Sometimes you drive onto a yard and know it is going to be good before you have even taken off your coat. That is how it went at Mearkas in Eastermar. You turn off at a sign among the shrubs, drive slowly onto the grounds and there it is: a large glasshouse, surrounded by vegetable gardens, a pick-your-own garden, a small food forest and a field of white tents. Here you dine in the glasshouse and sleep in a tent. We ate and stayed there, and loved it from start to finish.

First the tents. They stand in the field, each on its own wooden deck with a table made from an old cable reel and chairs out front, and strings of lights between the poles. Next to each tent is a small black wooden hut with a red tiled roof, and that is your own bathroom: toilet, shower and washbasin. Inside the tent is a proper bed, already made up, with a coffee maker and a kettle. Glamping, then, and the kind where you do not have to miss a thing.

Then the glasshouse. By day the light falls softly through the glass roof onto a herringbone brick floor, among plants, ivy and wooden tables. Towards evening the strings of lights come on, and the little lamps on the tables, and the sky above the glass slowly turns blue. We sat at a round black table with a plant in a stone pot and spent the whole evening looking around us. It is one of the loveliest places to eat in this whole book.

In the kitchen is chef Kees Meinderts, who learned his trade at Landgoed Lauswolt and De Librije. He cooks a set menu of four, five or six courses, built on whatever the garden and the local farmers and growers have at their best. It can also be fully vegetarian or plant-based. Among other things we had white fish in a light, creamy sauce with slices of mushroom, crisp mushroom chips and a green herb oil, with a glass of white. Then braised meat in a deep, glossy jus, with creamy mash, grilled pumpkin and a crisp on top, with a glass of red. On the table, a seeded roll on a little wooden board. It is honest seasonal cooking, fresh where it can be and rich where it should be. Michelin includes Mearkas in its guide and gave the glasshouse a Green Star for its sustainable approach in 2024 and 2025, and Gault&Millau awards two toques and 14 points. We understand both perfectly.

And then the best part of the evening: you do not have to go anywhere. After dinner you can sit by the fire for a while, and then you walk not down a hotel corridor but across the grass, under the strings of lights, to your own tent. The next morning you sit down in the glasshouse again, to a breakfast that leaves you briefly speechless: fresh orange juice, coffee, strawberries, yoghurt, granola, nuts, honey, jam, croissants and bread, all in earthenware bowls on a wooden table, with the garden behind the glass.

We are enthusiastic about the price too. The package costs € 175 per person: the five-course dinner, a night in the tent and that breakfast. For two, then, you pay about € 350, drinks not included. For an evening like this, with cooking of this standard, we think that is very kind.

Our advice: arrive in good time, you are welcome from four o'clock, and have a drink on the terrace first. Walk past the vegetable garden before dinner, so you know where your plate comes from. There are only five tents, they are up from May to October, and 2026 is already fully booked. So look ahead to next season. We certainly want to go back.

The glasshouse and the garden: cooking with what grows outside

The glasshouse is the heart of the grounds. Around it lie a vegetable garden, a pick-your-own garden and a small food forest, and what grows there ends up in the kitchen. For the vegetable garden the kitchen takes advice from Arno of Voedselbos De Iest, whom Mearkas calls its resident biologist. Kees Meinderts has worked with the supplier Iel en Mear for almost twenty years. The water comes from the tap via Merk Water, so no bottles need to be driven back and forth.

The menu is set and changes with the seasons: four courses for € 69.50, five for € 79.50 and six for € 89.50 per person. A glass of wine with each course costs € 8.50, half a glass € 4.50. We love that you can see where it all comes from as you eat: through the glass you look straight into the garden. From the same grounds the team also does catering, for businesses, parties and dinners at home.

Location and surroundings: the Noardlike Fryske Wâlden around Eastermar

Eastermar lies between Burgum and Drachten, in the Noardlike Fryske Wâlden national landscape: a small-scale landscape of meadows, wooded banks, alder hedges and dobben, little ponds left from the Ice Age. It is cycling country. The Swalkroute Eastermar is a 43 kilometre cycle route that starts and ends in the village and loops around two lakes, the Burgumer Mar and De Leijen. Along the way you pass Paviljoen de Leyen, with a terrace on the water, and the De Hoop corn mill, open on Saturdays.

From the motorway it is just over ten minutes. Leeuwarden and Groningen are both about half an hour to three quarters of an hour by car. If you want to stay two nights in the area, De Herberg van Smallingerland in Rottevalle is a few kilometres away, and Landgoed Lauswolt in Beetsterzwaag about fifteen minutes.

Price and practicalities

For two, count on

approx. € 350: dinner, one night and breakfast

How we get there

the package below

Menu

€ 79.50 p.p. (5 courses)

Package

€ 350 for two

Note

Glamping runs from May to October; drinks are extra.

Rooms

5 glamping tents, each with a private bathroom (May to October)

In charge

Kees Meinderts

Location

Eastermar, Friesland

Booking

Directly via mearkas.nl

Worked out from their own website and booking system for a weeknight in November 2026. Check your own date with the address.