For most of golf’s history, the clubhouse restaurant was an afterthought — a reliable place for a burger, a recap of the round, and little more.
Today, Europe’s most ambitious golf destinations are competing as fiercely over their kitchen credentials as they do over their course design.
The catalyst is a generation of experience-obsessed travelers who don’t separate sport from lifestyle.
And the latest, most compelling evidence of this shift is unfolding at Bernardus, a golf estate in the Dutch countryside, where a newly reborn Michelin-starred restaurant, Nami, is redefining what a round of golf can mean.
Golf Is No Longer Just Golf
The International Golf Travel Market, the sport’s leading industry body for travel, put it plainly in its 2025 trends report: golfers are increasingly seeking experiences that go beyond the game, blending world-class courses with spa treatments, fitness programs, and nutritious dining.
Championship golf is no longer the sole differentiator. The battlefield is the entire estate.
“Pre-COVID, the typical booking was off-the-shelf — seven nights and five rounds. Now guests want bespoke experiences spanning wellness, cuisine, and leisure.”— European Tour Destinations
The numbers bear this out. Food and beverage now accounts for roughly 21% of profits in the golf and country club sector, according to IBISWorld analysis, a figure that continues to climb as operators invest in culinary upgrades to attract younger, more demanding guests.
Millennials and Gen Z golfers, the industry’s future, expect the dining room to be as thoughtfully curated as the back nine.
Across Europe, a structural shift is visible. Leading destinations, from Costa Navarino in Greece to Terre Blanche in the South of France, are no longer simply building better practice facilities.
They are hiring Michelin-starred chefs, redesigning their dining spaces, and articulating a hospitality philosophy where gastronomy is central, not peripheral.
Golf is increasingly sold as one of the pillars of a luxury lifestyle destination.
7 Forces Reshaping the Golf Dining Landscape
- Destination Gastronomy: The leading golf resorts are pursuing Michelin recognition with the same intensity they once devoted to course design. A star has become a credentialing mechanism that signals to high-value guests the culinary experience merits the journey, independently of the sport.
- Tiered, Multi-Venue F&B: Smart operators no longer ask one restaurant to serve everyone. The winning model: a fine dining flagship for evening prestige, a casual all-day venue for golfers, and a bar or lounge for social occasions. Each outlet has a clear role; none cannibalizes the other.
- Nikkei and Global Fusion: When Lima’s Maido was crowned World’s Best Restaurant in 2025, it wasn’t just a win for Peru. It was a coronation for Nikkei, the Japanese-South American fusion born of 19th-century immigration that has become the most compelling fine-dining movement of the decade. The best operators are taking notice.
- Experience Over Transaction: OpenTable data shows 54% of diners will pay a premium for a one-of-a-kind experience in 2026. Counter and bar seating grew 23-26% year-over-year as guests seek social, interactive dining over formal, transaction-oriented meals. The restaurant needs to feel like a place, not a service.
- Chef Continuity as Brand Equity: In an era of volatile rebrands, a head chef who has held the position for years is an asset, not a given. Guests build loyalty to the chef. Longevity signals a consistent vision and deep knowledge of the guest base, a form of trust that no marketing campaign can manufacture.
- Wellness-Integrated Dining: The IGTM identifies wellness as one of golf travel’s five defining trends. Leading resorts blend championship golf with fitness programs, nutritious menus, and restorative therapies. Dining is no longer a post-round ritual — it is part of the performance and recovery ecosystem.
- Event-Driven Brand Moments: Major golf championships, the Ryder Cup, the Solheim Cup, and European Tour events are being used as platform moments to launch and legitimize hospitality investments. The concentrated international visibility of a major provides a unique window for a venue to announce itself to the world.
“The Bernardus Experience has always been about creating memories, from the golf course to the food, the wine, the design, and the overnight stay. Nami represents the next step in that journey.”— Sabine Riezebos, General Manager, Bernardus
Nami: A Masterclass in Strategic Timing
Set within the Bernardus estate in Cromvoirt, near ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Nami is not simply a renamed restaurant. It is a declaration.
Formerly known as Noble Kitchen, the Michelin-starred dining room has been reborn with a fully committed Nikkei identity, combining Japanese precision with South American influences, alongside a redesigned interior by Pieter Laureys, a sharpened culinary direction, and a new name drawn from the Japanese word for “wave.”
The chef, Tom Schoonus, has led the kitchen since 2019. The star remains. The ambition has escalated.
Why the Nikkei Bet Is Smart
The timing of Nami’s Nikkei pivot is strategically exact.
When Maido in Lima took the top spot at the World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2025, Nikkei cuisine entered a new cultural moment, validated at the highest level of global gastronomy.
Restaurant groups have responded: Chotto Matte, the leading Nikkei chain, opened in Manchester in late 2025 and is actively expanding into Tbilisi and the Middle East, having stated its intention to become “the global voice of Nikkei.”
Foodservice analysts describe the cuisine as “a strategic lever — differentiation through an original and modern offering.”
In a golf club setting, Nikkei’s characteristics are particularly well-suited. Its emphasis on precision, freshness, and sophisticated presentation maps naturally onto the values of a premium sporting environment.
It offers genuine novelty without alienating conservative palates, since it is rooted in deeply respected culinary traditions from two of the world’s great food cultures.
And it photographs exceptionally well, no small consideration in a media landscape where a restaurant’s visual identity travels as far as its reputation.
The Two-Venue Architecture
Alongside Nami, Bernardus Café has been given a clearer role: an international, all-day dining venue suited to the rhythm of the golf day.
This is not an afterthought; it is a carefully calibrated piece of the estate’s hospitality architecture.
Nami functions as the destination anchor and brand flagship; the Café captures spend at every daypart without competing for Nami’s positioning.
The model mirrors best practice across Europe’s leading resorts, where separating fine dining from casual golf catering has proven both commercially sensible and strategically intelligent.
Michelin-starred Trinity in London demonstrates the financial logic: its lunch format runs at roughly 40% less than dinner, building stable daytime traffic without undermining the prestige of evening service.
Bernardus applies the same principle across two venues rather than two menus, a model that allows each outlet to excel on its own terms.
How Nami Maps to the 7 Trends
The Solheim Cup Factor
The 2026 Solheim Cup, the first to be held in the Netherlands, arrives as a significant tailwind.
The tournament will draw an international audience of golf’s most committed enthusiasts to Dutch soil, elevating awareness of the country’s golf credentials at precisely the moment Bernardus has invested in expanding its own.
A Michelin-starred Nikkei restaurant at a championship Dutch golf destination is exactly the kind of narrative that travels, through international golf and travel press, through the social media of well-connected guests, and through the word of mouth of the players, caddies, sponsors, and officials who will descend on the region.
The Verdict
Nami is not simply a new name for an existing restaurant.
It is Bernardus‘s clearest statement yet that gastronomy is a defining pillar of its identity, and a well-calibrated move in a market where destination dining is becoming the primary differentiator among Europe’s premium golf estates.
The Nikkei concept is timely, the chef’s continuity is reassuring, the two-venue strategy is commercially astute, and the Solheim Cup timing is fortunate in the best sense of the word.
When the world’s attention turns to Dutch golf this year, Bernardus will have a story worth telling at the table.