At Michelin-starred restaurant Bord’Eau, you eat according to your own flavor profile
Eating in courses? At Restaurant Bord’Eau*, they’re doing things differently from now on. Here, the kitchen no longer works with standard courses, but with flavor profiles. And it works remarkably well.
Cooking in flavor profiles?
Yes, because Michelin-starred chef Bas van Kranen wanted to try something different for his guests. He disappeared into the test kitchen and emerged, countless weeks and dishes later, with seven flavor profiles that gradually build throughout the evening. From vibrant, elegant, floral, aromatic and intense to mature and fruit. Within these profiles, he developed various dishes that, even when different ingredients are used, always follow exactly the same line in terms of flavor experience.
An example, please!
This new approach does require a little extra explanation. Here goes: within the ‘elegant’ flavor profile, there are several dishes to choose from. For fish lovers, there’s red mullet & pomegranate; for vegetarians, pulses & kalamansi; and if you prefer meat, milk cow & horseradish is on the menu. Whatever you choose, all the dishes are equally elegant.
Five or seven
You can choose from five (€98) or seven (€138) flavor profiles. Thanks to the ingenious structure of the menu, everyone is on the same wavelength when it comes to the flavor experience—even when three completely different dishes are served.
Best vegetable restaurant
Bord’Eau was recently named ‘Best Vegetable Restaurant in the Netherlands 2019’. So we’re especially looking forward to the vegetable menu, inspired by vegetables, plants and fruit, which is on the menu through September.
Spread love as thick as Guernsey-butter
But first, there’s bread. Crisp sourdough and heavenly soft brioche. Alongside it: goat’s milk butter and Guernsey butter. The danger with bread this good is that you immediately stuff yourself. Which we do. But in a civilized manner, because, well, a Michelin-starred restaurant.
Roman snail
As an amuse-bouche, a Roman snail ‘with everything the snail eats’ is served in two parts. The first is kohlrabi cooked in fermented vegetable jus with wild herbs. The second is the cooked snail itself, with wild herbs, horseradish and spinach. It’s clear we’re dealing with a creative chef—and yes, we like it a lot!
Blown-away tomato
The first dish—flavor profile: vibrant—consists of seven different tomatoes & wild strawberries. The presentation is spectacular, and the same goes for the flavor. Fresh, lightly sweet, soothingly soft. Insane.
No waste
Aside from the idea of the flavor profiles, Bas also set out to find a way to cook even more sustainably. This is reflected, among other things, in the second dish—flavor profile: elegant—of pulses & kalamansi (a citrus fruit). The kimchi served with it is made from the waste of the pulses. Once again, a beautiful dish. Crunchy vegetables, fresh and creamy, exciting!
Oh boy…
We take a little side step from vegetables to meat and order the dish of duck liver & green olive. Rarely have we eaten such a beautiful dish. The liver is cooked perfectly: very lightly crisp on the outside and extremely smooth and soft inside. Neither heavy nor dense. Flavor profile: aromatic. Breathtaking.
Intense
After several dishes that follow one another in flavor intensity, we arrive at the ‘intense’ flavor profile. This means gently cooked turnips with elderflower (special, as it blooms for only a very short time), with grapefruit juice. Although light and fresh, it is indeed an intense (because bitter) dish.
The showstopper of the evening
Depending on your choice, dessert comes in three varieties. Extremely fresh is the phenomenal combination of apricot ice cream with cucumber. Utterly beautiful is the dessert of (Guernsey) milk & honey, topped with a crisp honeycomb. But it can be even more spectacular: Damascus rose & oxtail. The most beautiful dessert we’ve seen in ages stimulates all the senses.
Will we come back?
We hardly dare use the cliché, but here goes: this is Culinary Enjoyment with capital letters. Here, dining out is an experience (sorry, we’ll throw in one more): an experience. So yes, gladly! The kitchen at Bord’Eau is fresh, the dishes exceptionally creative, the flavors overwhelming, the presentation beautiful, and the tableware, finally, is stunning. For five courses—er, flavor profiles—you pay just under one hundred euros, which is more than a great price-to-quality ratio.
The spectacular vegetable menu is still available through September 28. On October 1, the meat and game season starts at Bord’Eau.
Bord’Eau Restaurant Gastronomique
Nieuwe Doelenstraat 2 – 14, Amsterdam
Also read:
- Hotspot: next-level BBQ at Black Smoke in Rotterdam
- Hotspot for wine lovers: Zoldering
- Hotspot: cooking over an open fire at Restaurant Wils
