Chef Bas van Kranen. Courtesy Chantal Arnts

Bas van Kranen loves vegetables. So much so that since Amsterdam’s Flore launched in 2021, the menu at the two-Michelin-starred restaurant has continuously featured a dish comprised of more than 25 herbs, vegetables and flowers. Some are cooked, some are raw, some are pickled, and it changes seasonally. The vibrant plate underscores van Kranen’s love of produce—an obsession he’s had since growing up in Maasbracht.

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“I just really like to eat vegetables,” the Dutch chef tells Observer, sitting in Flore’s private dining room. On one side is one of Amsterdam’s canals, filled with passing tourist boats, and on the other is the pristine kitchen, where the team is prepping for today’s lunch service. He acknowledges that he likes seafood and meat, too, but that’s not where his inspiration lies.

During the pandemic, van Kranen spent a lot of time learning about food provenance, which has shaped his cooking.

“I came to understand that there is a difference between a vegetable and a vegetable,” he explains. “Before, we worked with a big range of vegetables, and we didn’t know where they were coming from. They’re grown with chemicals. They’re grown for volume and speed.”

Now, Flore works exclusively with organic produce from farms in the Netherlands. “They’re grown with care, with time for flavor,” van Kranen notes. “Because of that, they became even more interesting to me. I realized it’s very underrated to cook good food with vegetables.”

In its past life, Flore was a high-end French eatery called Restaurant Bord’Eau. Part of luxury hotel De L’Europe, Bord’Eau was a successful fine dining establishment with a Michelin star and a decade of service when van Kranen was hired as its chef in 2018. He maintained the restaurant’s traditions until the pandemic closed everything down in 2020. Because he couldn’t welcome diners, van Kranen wanted to use his........

© Observer