culinair

Culinair is a Dutch adjective that relates to cooking and food preparation, as well as to gastronomy and the culture surrounding eating. It covers technical aspects of cooking, menu design, presentation, and service, but also the broader field of cuisine and culinary traditions. The term is used across media, hospitality, education, and marketing to signal a focus on quality and craft.

The word derives from the French culinaire, itself from the Latin culina, kitchen. In Dutch usage, culinair typically appears as an attributive descriptor, as in culinaire traditie or culinaire kunsten, and in compounds such as culinaire programma, culinair vak, or culinaire opleiding. The feminine form culinaire is common before feminine nouns; the masculine form culinair is common in other contexts. Both reflect the same meaning.

In practice, culinair denotes professional-level cooking and gastronomy—i.e., high-quality techniques, recipe development, presentation, and service. It is frequently employed in restaurant branding, culinary magazines, cooking shows, and education to distinguish everyday cooking from the craft and culture of haute cuisine and regional gastronomy.

Culinair is closely related to gastronomie, cuisine, en kookkunst. It can be used in discussions of culinary heritage, trends in dining, and food-education programs, as well as in descriptions of restaurants, chefs, and culinary events.