In the Netherlands we have a saying: a good neighbor is worth more than a friend far away. We have the best of both worlds, as our neighbors are also very good friends. One of the things we share with them is a love for fine dining. And so the four of us took a short train ride to Amsterdam to have dinner at Flore. It is located in the l’Europe hotel with a view of the Amstel river, and is the successor of Bord’Eau, the restaurant of Richard van Oostenbrugge that used to be here (and that I liked a lot). Chef Bas van Kranen was already working at Bord’Eau when Richard left in 2018, took over from him, changed the name to Flore in 2021, and received two Michelin stars in 2022. Flore is about “conscious fine dining” and does not use dairy (so no cheese, no butter, no cream). The choice of ingredients seems to be influenced by Noma, as the “winter season” menu “celebrates the bounty of preserves, root vegetables, seafood, wild game, and berries” that is sourced from “our community of farmers, fishermen, hunters, and foragers”.

There is no à la carte, and the choice between two 7-course tasting menus: “botanic” or “omnivore” (225 euros) with alcoholic beverage pairing (105 euros) or juice pairing. The menu does not list the dishes, but only the main ingredients of the dishes, listed in random order. The idea is that you can point out any ingredients that you don’t like.

We started with a nice glass of vintage champagne (not part of the pairing), a 2015 Vincent Renoir Extra Brut made from 70% Chardonnay and 30% Pinot Noir from grand cru vineyards in the village of Verzy, aged 42 months on the lees.

The first amuse was a sausage of pikeperch and scallops with uni and a seaweed dashi. The sausage had the texture of a “Wiener” sausage (without the skin), which is a technical feat, but I think you could make something nicer out of pikeperch and scallops. The uni sauce was really nice though.

Next was crab with walnut and camomile. It looked like a huge portion of crab, but the crab shell was actually filled with bees wax and there was only a thin layer of crab. As only a single eating utensil (a spoon) was provided, it was quite hard to get all of the crab without using your fingers. Nobody at our table really liked the flavor of this dish.

The following amuse was squid tartare with ramps and rhubarb. I thought the squid was a bit too tough and under seasoned, but the others at the table liked this very much.

The final amuse was Japanese egg custard (seems to be in vogue at the moment, as there was also a Japanese egg custard at Spectrum 3 weeks ago) with rabbit kidneys, spruce, and apricot.

The first wine of the pairing was a 2022 Pixu Welschriesling (also known as Olaszrizling, Grasevina) by Gilvesy from the György-Hegy region in Hungary.

It was an adequate pairing for the signature dish of the chef with 25 different vegetables and herbs, including cauliflower, and artichoke.

All the wines in the pairing are organic and unfortunately that means a higher risk of natural wine (i.e. wine without added sulfur). There is a good reason why sulfur is used in wine making, as it protects the wine against oxidation and bacterial instability. This Muller-Koeberle Casimir from Alsace in France was a petnat Mirabelle plum wine, blended with a Riesling base, infused with hemp flowers, and sparkling (“petnat” is short for Pétillant naturel; the bubbles are achieved because the winemaker has simply bottled the wine before the initial fermentation had ended, thus trapping the CO2 that is created by the fermentation in the bottle). It wasn’t bad for a natural wine, but did have the generic natural wine aroma (i.e. no fruit). Can you tell I am not a fan? This alcoholic beverage (as it can’t be legally called wine because of the plums and hemp flowers) had a very pronounced acidity and was low in alcohol (8%).

Most of the dishes were finished at the table by spooning or pouring one or two sauces around or on top of it. Most of the dishes also looked better before this was done. I have taken all the other photos of the dish how it was just before I started eating, but in this case I am also showing it before the final green sauce was added on top. You will probably agree with me that the dish without that sauce on top (on the left-hand side) looks more appetizing than the final result (on the right-hand side).

Anyway, the next dish was dry-aged turbot with Indian cress and Dutch wasabi. The fin (swimming muscle) of the turbot on top was nicely grilled and very tasted, and I liked the wasabi. The turbot had been dry-aged for 5 days. That sounds impressive, but I did not care for the resulting flavor and texture, as it was a bit bland and dry. I would have preferred a fresh piece of turbot with some more salt. The petnat ‘wine’ was too aggressive for the dish.

Up until this point the meal was a bit disappointing for two Michelin stars, and I was also getting quite peckish, as it was 9pm and the portions were tiny and did not include any carbs.

The next wine was a 2022 Frühburgunder from the Meuse valley in Limburg, Netherlands, by Wijngoed Thorn. Frühburgunder is an earlier-ripening clone of Pinot Noir, and thus perfect for the Dutch climate. This wine is made in stainless steel and is very elegant and slightly fruity.

Next to the red wine, there was also a sparkling tea (no alcohol) as a palate cleanser for the second part of the dish.

The first part of the dish was a perfectly cooked langoustine (scampi) tail with maitake mushrooms and preserves, served with a pheasant and maitake jus. The jus was the star of this dish, delicious and full of flavor. The very surprising combination with the langoustine actually did work, as well as the pairing with the Frühburgunder.

There was much more pheasant jus on the plate than you could mop up with the langoustine, and it was very difficult to get it with the provided cutlery. I didn’t want this wonderful jus go to waste and was about to start licking my plate (not something I often do in a Michelin starred restaurant), when I decided to ask for some bread to mop up the sauce with. No bread had been provided so far and I had not seen it at other tables (except for a brioche with the main course). It took them a while to come up with the bread (some freshly toasted sourdough bread) and we had to protect our plates from being cleared away in the meantime. When I talked to the Italian sommelier about it, he of course agreed that fare la scarpetta was the proper thing to do with this dish, and that some education was in order here.

The second part of the dish was made from, and served inside, the head of the langoustine. Although made from the same langoustine, it was good that a palate cleanser was provided in the shape of the sparkling tea, because the flavor profile was completely different.

The beverage pairing continued with another petnat, a rosé from the rare grape variety Blauer Wildbacher from Steiermark in Austria. With 18 grams of residual sugar it was quite fruity.

It was paired with red mullet, both raw and barbecued on the skin, with sea bass “nduja”. The barbecued red mullet was rare with a great texture, although I would have preferred a bit more salt. Nduja is a spicy pork paste from Calabria in Italy, but this homemade version was made from sea bass. It was very tasty with a good balance between spicy and creamy. The pairing with the petnat worked quite well, although the acidity accentuated the spiciness.

The next wine was really nice: a 2019 Bibich R5 Riserva from the Dalmatian coast in Croatia. It was a blend of Debit, Maraština, Pošip, Chardonnnay, and Pinot Gris, aged for 12 months in new and used American oak. A very nice wine, complex, creamy, with nutty aromas (including some coconut from the American oak).

This was a good pairing for the smoked eel with ‘gnocchi’ of malt, and ramps. The gnocchi had a nice texture but not a lot of flavor. The small amount of smoked eel was delicious.

The wine with the main course was a 2021 Vamvakada by the Tsiakkas winery in Cyprus, aged for 12 to 14 months in French and American oak. Vamvakada is a unique local grape variety from ungrafted, phylloxera free vines at 900-1200 meters above sea level (the label suggestively says “on the steep slopes of Troodos mountains that reach 1460 meters above sea level”, but the vines are not actually planted that high up). This grape variety is also known as Maratheftiko or Bambakada. I always like tasting new grape varieties and this wine was delicious. Very elegant and balanced. Many “lighter” red wines are too acidic or lack in flavor, but this was wonderful.

The wine was an excellent pairing for the quail with black truffle, laminated brioche, and pickles. The quail was very tender and juicy. The black truffle flavor was very subdued; I don’t think I would have noticed it if they had not mentioned it was in there. The jus was very nice.

I’ve often complained about restaurants pairing a red wine with a white meat main course, because the wine was too strong, and only selected because pairing the main dish with a red wine was given a higher priority than selecting a good pairing for the dish. But this red wine was perfect for this dish, perhaps due to the high altitude in a very sunny climate (which means the wine can retain its acidity because of the lower temperature at high altitude, but gets perfectly ripe tannins because of the sun).

The final alcoholic beverage of the pairing was a red Montepulciano wine mixed with sour cherries (visciole) from the Marche in Italy.

This was a good pairing for the dessert of marzipan with rose and lavender.

Coffee or tea to finish was accompanied by a donut with orange blossom and some other friandises.

As you can tell from my description above, I have mixed feelings about the dishes that chef Bas van Kranen creates. That is certainly not due to his cooking technique; everything is cooked to perfection. It is more a matter of personal preference. This can simply be a preference of the chef to use less salt than I would prefer, or a preference to use elaborate techniques that for me do not really work. For instance, I don’t see the point of a laminated brioche, which is more work, but not nearly as good as the regular brioche I recently enjoyed at Spectrum. Which can be due to the lack of butter, which is another preference of this chef (not to use any dairy in his cooking). On top of that, the portions are tiny, and I literally had a burger at the train station before taking the train home, because I was still hungry after the meal. But there were some delicious dishes as well, like the pheasant jus.

Most of the wines were nice and most of the pairings worked. I already mentioned the excellent pairing with the main course. Compared to other restaurants in Amsterdam, I thought the beverage pairing offers good value for money.

The service was good. Some things didn’t go smoothly at first, but they did take good note of our remarks and fixed things. We couldn’t understand the heavily accented English of the first server, and when we asked the Dutch server what we had had when she cleared it away, we then didn’t see that first server anymore. When we had asked for bread to mop up the pheasant jus, we only had to mention once afterwards that the plates could not be cleared away until we had received the bread (so the server we asked the bread from did not notify her colleagues, but the next server did). And when one of us mentioned we were still peckish, a second round of bread was brought out without specifically asking for it. The service was also very friendly and not too formal.

Compared to Spectrum three weeks ago, to me it doesn’t feel right that both restaurants hold the same amount of Michelin stars. Either Flore should go down to one, or Spectrum should go up to three. The new Michelin judgements are coming up in a couple of months, so let’s wait and see what happens.