To this day, De Echoput is a proud family business. After the start by Jaap and Tineke Klosse in 1955 and the beginning of the successful restaurant period, Peter and Carla Klosse took over the company in 1985 and developed it into the gastronomic 5-star hotel it is today. The third Klosse generation is now active, and the company is led by Lodewijk Klosse.
Hotel Gastronomique De Echoput owes its name to an actual echo well. This water well was dug from 1809-1811 by order of Louis Napoleon and was used at the time for the drinking water of the army's horses. Thanks to the depth of the well and presumably a subsidence during digging, a very clearly audible echo was created.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the echo well was a well-known tourist attraction and a popular destination for school trips. The historic well is still located in the house on the Amersfoortseweg, the old road from London to Berlin, and can still be visited upon request.
The increasing visits to the well were a source of annoyance for Queen Wilhelmina, who lived at Het Loo Palace. The Queen was very fond of order and cleanliness of the Crown Domain, while the busy well was often littered with the 'peels and boxes' left behind by visitors. She decided to build a tea house for providing refreshments. The tenant could then also be made responsible for keeping the area clean. This is the origin of Restaurant De Echoput.
No one could have suspected then that the simple tea house would develop in such a way. In 1955, the first generation of the Klosse family arrived. Jaap and Tineke had both just graduated from the Hotel Management School in The Hague. They saw potential in the Echoput, its surroundings, and its location on the busy E8, the main road between Amsterdam and the east. Together with two assistants, they were busy from early morning until late at night providing drinks and simple meals to the many passersby. Soon, plans to change were brewing. The Echoput should become less of a tea house and more of a restaurant.
Under the leadership of grandfather Jaap Klosse, De Echoput grew from a simple teahouse for passersby into a major gastronomic destination. When it became clear that the new highway would take away the natural flow of road users, he chose not to relocate or focus on volume, but on quality. The kitchen increasingly focused on what the Veluwe itself had to offer: game, mushrooms, blueberries, blackberries, and lingonberries.
This choice was rewarded in 1967 with a Michelin star, at a time when starred restaurants in the Netherlands were still rare. Jaap Klosse also became one of the initiators of the Alliance Gastronomique Néerlandaise. His pure approach to game, without heavy marinades or sweet garnishes, was innovative and attracted the attention of both Dutch and French chefs. De Echoput became a restaurant for which guests deliberately left the main road: no longer for a quick stop, but for game preparation, wine, and top-level gastronomy.
With Peter and Carla Klosse, De Echoput received a new, enterprising impulse from 1986 onwards. They built on the gastronomic tradition of Jaap and Tineke and even received two Michelin stars, and expanded the business significantly towards wine, taste research, education, and guest experience. De Echoput became one of the first restaurants in the Netherlands with full-fledged wine arrangements and developed into a specialist in wine-food combinations, supported by its own wine import and the store Echoput Wijnen & Foods.
Under the leadership of Peter Klosse, the scientific approach to taste also grew. Research into universal taste factors emerged, which in 1991 led to the establishment of the Academy for Gastronomy. Later, Peter Klosse earned a PhD with his Taste Theory and wrote several leading books on gastronomy and wine.
The biggest step followed in 2004, when the restaurant made way for a completely new building: Hotel Gastronomique De Echoput. With this, the culinary destination was expanded to a 5-star hotel where gastronomy, accommodation, nature, and knowledge transfer come together. With the cooking and wine school and continued focus on sustainability, no waste, and conscious cooking, De Echoput remained a pioneer in Dutch gastronomy even under the second generation.
Under the leadership of Lodewijk Klosse, the third generation builds on the rich legacy of De Echoput, with a clear view of the future. The core remains the same: gastronomy, nature, game, wine, and hospitality. But the form is made contemporary again, with more attention to total experience, new culinary concepts, and a younger generation of guests.
In 2025, the year in which De Echoput celebrated its 70th anniversary, this course visibly took shape. The former Restaurant De Echoput was transformed into Grand Bistro Echo: a warm, accessible restaurant for lunch, high tea, and dinner. Additionally, Het Wild Atelier opened, the fine-dining restaurant of De Echoput led by Jonathan Zandbergen, where a new generation of game gastronomy comes to life.
Outside the hotel, the Klosse philosophy continues to resonate. The wine import, once started by Jaap Klosse and expanded by Peter Klosse, received a new identity under the third generation as Klosse Wines: sustainable, gastronomic wines with character, rooted in the same taste vision that has distinguished De Echoput for decades. Thus, De Echoput continues to innovate without losing its origin: rooted in tradition, driven by innovation.
