Flore (**)

This sustainable restaurant by Bas van Kranen is located in the LHW hotel De L’Europe Amsterdam. Here they cook with basically Dutch ingredients, in addition, they cook without dairy and especially organic wines of the highest level are served. We are curious about this concept. Bas received his second star in 2022 and Flore has a green Michelin star.

On Christmas Day 2023 we had lunch here. The lunch is a 6-course meal. We have a table on the water with a view of the Munt tower.

We start with a glass champagne from J.M. Goulard. The champagne is made from pinot noir and because of this, the champagne is slightly darker colored than standard. A very nice champagne. Recently, Flore has been allowed to serve champagne by the glass from the house of Krug.

We receive a menu with all the ingredients of the entire menu. The ingredients are intertwined, so the dishes cannot be guessed yet. After the champagne, the amuse-bouches are served. The first amuse bouche we get is partridge with porcini mushrooms. The partridge is used in two different dishes. A sausage grilled on charcoal and a partridge broth with porcini mushrooms oil. The sausage lies on pine twigs. A delicious start to our lunch.

Then we receive carrot with dango and a sauce of sourdough bread. Dango is a Japanese delicacy and is a dough ball made from glutinous rice flour. The taste of the dango with the foam of the carrot is very good.

Then comes an amuse-bouche where we wonder what is being done with the ingredients on the menu. We receive fish head. A tartlet made from seaweed is filled with fish from fish heads and sea lettuce. The meat of the fish heads has been removed and processed into the amuse-bouche. What a divine taste. We received very good amuse-bouches.

The first dish is the chef’s signature: vegetables of the moment. 25 different types of vegetables are used in this dish. The chef receives the vegetables from the supplier that are suitable at that moment and makes a slightly different dish each time. The vegetables are prepared in different ways: grilled, boiled, left pure. Over the vegetables a Jerusalem artichoke vinaigrette and a hazelnut sauce. What a great dish this is.

The wine with this complex dish is a Portuguese Malvasia from the Douro of Macanita. A good match with the various vegetables and with the dressings.

For the second course we are invited to the kitchen. An experience in itself. Chef Bas and his brigade show the art of cooking. What a great experience to be able to eat here. We have a short chat with the chef and other kitchen members but don’t want to keep them from the work too much.

We get oyster, razor clam and clams with celtuce and plankton. The oyster is less salty than expected and therefore the saltiness does not get the upper hand. The sauce that is served with the dish is creamy. What a beautiful dish.

As a wine we get a sherry from Manzanilla Pasada Xixarito. The sherry is dry and has a salty aftertaste with a little bitterness. The sherry goes perfectly with the shellfish.

After we say goodbye to the kitchen brigade, we get the third dish at the table, which we saw being made in the kitchen. Potato with watercress and Dutch wasabi. The potato is boiled briefly and then formed into strings. Underneath the potato is a sauce of watercress, parsley and horseradish that provides a nice spicy taste and color. On top of the potato is a very creamy sauce of hazelnut milk and dash garlic. The kitchen doesn’t cook with dairy, the sauce is so creamy a star is behind the pans here. The sauce is so flavorful because of the hazelnut milk. Perfect!

When determining the wine, it was indicated that the wine arrangement does not only include wines, with the potato we get a sake (Seafood sake). A sake from the Hiroshima region. A lime-like aftertaste. The sake, not too strong, goes well with the potato and cream flavors.

The fourth dish is two preparations of sea bass. A piece of sea bass grilled on charcoal with pheasant gravy and miso, the other a sea bass tartare with yeast sauce. The skin of the sea bass is very crispy. The piece of fish is perfectly cooked. The sauce that is served with it is so good. This one is made of pheasant bones. Cool to have fish and poultry together on a plate. The tartare is covered with a sauce, eating the tartare with the sauce creates a flavor explosion. What a pleasure to eat here.

Because the two preparations are completely different, we receive two wines. This is very good. With the sea bass with pheasant we receive a kombucha elixir from Chateau de la Crau. A champagne-like drink. The wine with the tartare is a Greek wine from Santorini. The grape is Assyrtiko and the winery Domaine Sigalas. A wine from 2015. An explosion of minerals with an aftertaste of lime and grapefruit. Top with the fresh fish.

The main course is a version of beef wellington: hare in puff pastry with red chicory. A piece of fillet of hare surrounded by seaweed and around it pâté of hare and then pickled in puff pastry. Puff pastry crispy and the meat nice and pink. What great flavors. The sauce is a perfect accompaniment. We enjoy here with full rigs. I want to make this dish myself.

As a wine, a Sicilian wine from Etna Rosso, namely a Pistus 2015. Very nice wine with the hare. A nice full-bodied round wine.

One of the best desserts we have ever eaten is served next: mushrooms pickled in honey and thyme. Porcini mushrooms, morels and other mushrooms are laid in honey in the fall, then some of the mushrooms are grilled and some are left raw. The mushrooms are cut small and placed on a plate with honey ice cream served with it. A unique dessert.

The wine is an orange wine from Iglesias Par. The wine has an orange taste. The grapes are Pedro Ximenez. A nice ending to the menu.

With coffee we receive a parade of friandise: donut with pumpkin, beetroot with cherry and honey with honey pollen.

The interior is very nice. There are a limited number of tables in this restaurant, all tables have a view of the water and the coin tower. Beautiful dishes hang from the ceiling that are illuminated and give subdued reflected light. The interior looks chic without fuss.

The service is top notch. The waiters know what they serve and how everything is prepared. The table in the kitchen is the icing on the cake. How cool to be able to experience this.