Top chef Michiel Verbakel (58) had three restaurants and gave a chef in several places. Yet he ended up at the Food Bank to have enough food for his family with three growing children. “It can happen to anyone.” He is easy to tell about it. “I have passed the shame.”
In the kitchen at Michiel’s home you notice that cooking is his passion. With love he prepares Risotto for his family. He regularly tastes. “That is also part of a cook, I think.” Cooking has been his work for forty years. It also went well for times. “Two of the three restaurants still exist. The last restaurant was taken over by a former student of mine.” And that is not the first the best: star chef Adrian Zarzo.
Yet Michiel ended up with the Food Bank. In 2007 he bought the successful restaurant Zuid on the Geldropseweg in Eindhoven. “It’s just bad luck and starting in the wrong time. I take over a business in 2007 and in 2008 the crisis starts. One and one is two. It was an uncertain time. Many guests did not go out for dinner anymore. You have a bulk staff that you have to continue to pay and the rent is also going on. I was no longer in the backlog.”
85 euros per week
Debts had to be paid off. “I couldn’t get rid of it anymore. In 2017 I had to close my business. Then you get into a process and it seems forever.” In 2019 he had 85 euros a week to live with his wife and three children. “You are only dependent on others. Not only on the food bank, but also on your family and friends. You have nothing left.”
He was eligible to get food from the food bank. “If you come here for the first time, it gives a feeling of shame. Stand here, in line in a dark, cold, cold space. You could hand in your bags and you were given your food.” In the meantime there is a store in the Food Bank where customers can do free shopping.
The contrast could hardly be bigger. The cook who previously worked in a restaurant with a Michelin star and had several things himself now received his food from the Food Bank. “You are really at the bottom of the social and economic ladder and that’s how it feels. And certainly when you come here and see all those other people. Then you think:” Yes, and now? not.”
The Eindhoven Food Bank has been around for twenty years. That will be celebrated on Monday 29 September. 630 households use the Eindhoven food bank. With a team of more than 160 volunteers, the Food Bank is open five days a week.
Michiel tried to give it a twist to stay positive. As a cook he tried to make something tasty with the things he received. “Very often I thought about a nice cookbook with things from the Food Bank. In the end it didn’t happen because I didn’t have the resources for it, but the thought did play.”
“You don’t have to be ashamed of it at all.”
Michiel had to overcome the shame, but that worked. “I was waiting in line and then someone said,” It’s just the way it is and we all stand here for the same thing. ” That man was not forever.
Michiel is doing better again. He works again four long days a week as a chef in a restaurant in Eindhoven. It is no longer dependent on the food bank.
Yet he still comes there every Tuesday, but as a coordinator. “It is so nice to be able to do something for the people who helped me then. It gives a satisfied feeling, when I am ready here in the afternoon and everyone is happy again. I want to give these people a little hope and humanity. You don’t have to be ashamed of it at all.”
