Chef de Partie · Pastry, desserts & bread · Antwerp
Crafting exceptional pastry with precision, curiosity and care.
Now
MEA at VIA Antwerp
Cold section · pastry & bread
Front of house
Zilte 3 Michelin stars·The Jane 2 Michelin stars
Michelin-starred service
Self-taught baker
Since 2020
From home ovens to a professional kitchen
A cinematic macro film on dark stone follows a croissant through real lamination: butter sealed inside dough, the slab folded through its turns, the shaped crescent proofing and baking to deep amber, and finally the croissant split open to its honeycomb crumb.
My story
Eleven years in brand, buying and planning across Manila and Germany. I was good at it, and always reaching past the campaign for the product itself: how it was made, and how it landed with the person who picked it up.
Home ovens first: breads, cakes and pastries from scratch, seasonal, gluten-free and vegan when it should be, low waste always. A loaf tells the truth about your timing. There is no brief to hide behind, and I liked that.
Front of house at The Jane and Zilte, two and three Michelin stars. Nobody trained me to bake there. The rooms taught me precision, presentation and calm under pressure while I taught myself the dough.
Chef de Partie at MEA in Antwerp: the cold section, desserts, pastry preparation and most of the house bread. The four hundredth one still has to look like the first.
At a glance
I work calmly, I waste very little, and I finish what I start.
Mise en place that holds. A station ready before it is needed. The discipline to repeat something exactly, on the four hundredth cover as on the first.
Professional journey
Skills
Breads, cakes, cookies and pastries from scratch
Mise en place, hot and cold sections, breakfast & buffet preparation, and inventory
Prep, stock readiness, food safety, and low-waste use of ingredients
Product, inventory, vendor relationships, and customer experience
Commercial & Brand Experience
For the record
Most bakers have not run a P&L. Here is what a decade of retail actually translates into, behind your counter.
In retail, it meant
Running the floor across 45 stores: staffing, standards, and the daily gap between what a plan says and what a shop actually does.
In a bakery, it becomes
A bakery is a shop that happens to have an oven. I read a counter the way I read a store: what moved, what sat, what the eleven o’clock customer wanted and did not find.
Why FUNK
Dear Lisa, Dennis and the FUNK team,
I am writing to one bakery, not to a hundred.
FUNK is the place in Antwerp I keep coming back to: serious craft with a modern point of view, plant-based pastries, real sourdough, seasonal products and an honest commitment to sustainability. With the larger bakery and production atelier opening in Berchem, this felt like the moment to introduce myself.
It should be mutual, and I believe this one would be. Your plant-based, low-waste way of working is not a trend to me; it is already how I cook. I volunteer in Vipassana retreat kitchens, making mostly vegan desserts from whatever is available and wasting almost none of it, and I have baked breads, cakes and pastries at home since 2020, gluten-free and vegan included.
By day I am Chef de Partie at MEA at VIA Antwerp, where I run the cold section: desserts, pastry preparation and most of our in-house bread. Before the kitchen I worked front of house at The Jane and Zilte, which taught me presentation, pace and what it costs to hold a real standard. Eleven years in brand and buying before that mean I care what sells at the counter, not only what leaves the kitchen.
What I would ask of you is the chance to go deeper into sourdough, fermentation and plant-based pastry, inside a team whose standard I respect. What you would get is someone dependable, curious and quick to learn, as comfortable taking responsibility as supporting wherever the day's production needs a hand.
I would be glad to come in for a trial shift, or simply to meet. And if there is no opening right now, keep my CV close; I would love to hear from you when there is.
Rein Estebal
Chef de Partie · Antwerp, Belgium
Character
References
MEA at VIA Antwerp
Chef de Partie
August 2025 – Present
Zilte3 Michelin stars
Chef de Rang (flexi)
June – Sept 2025
The Jane2 Michelin stars
Chef de Rang
Nov 2023 – May 2025
Available on request
Tell me which of them you would like to hear from and I will make the introduction the same day, with their permission.
A dark bakery oven slowly opens as you scroll, warm light spilling out, and a tray of golden croissants slides forward with steam rising.
The early shift
The ovens are hot before the city wakes. I want the shift that lights them: breakfast, buffet and the day's bread, ready before the first cover.
Everything on this page, baked into one document. Take it with you.
Contact
Available in and around Antwerp. Happy to come in for a trial shift. That is usually a better conversation than a CV.
