“Commercial banks are not known for their efforts to make a better world; they are more concerned about maximizing profits. However when ABNAmro, one of the Netherlands’ biggest banks, planned to build a restaurant outside their main office in Amsterdam, they decided it would be a circular restaurant, built with recycled materials.

“Chairs are made from recycled refrigerator doors, insulation in the ceiling is created from bank employees’ old jeans. The toilet flushes with rainwater. And what goes for the building, applies to the kitchen.”

Freshwater pike perch with kale, beetroot, and messeklever; smoked bell pepper soup with pickled cauliflower; and bread and butter pudding.

Circl serves only sustainable fish and ethicaly produced meat. The focus is on vegetables, which Circl buys largely from Instock, a company that gathers unsold produce in the distribution centers of Dutch supermarkets.

The kitchen of Circl is in the middle of the spacious restaurant, the walls are covered with shelves, full of glass jars filled with preserved vegetables and fruits. Eating at a bank will never be nicer.