Sad news: top pastry chef Maurits van der Vooren (37) has died

Despair and tears in the Dutch hospitality industry. Last October, a benefit dinner was organized to raise money for expensive treatments abroad, but sadly, it was not enough. Yesterday, beloved and talented pastry chef Maurits van der Vooren passed away.

Last night, after the press conference, I was in the Clubhouse room of Horeca Inside. The speakers were hospitality entrepreneurs who had just learned that the measures would not be relaxed for the time being. A sad situation in itself, but the closing news was even more heartbreaking: the wonderful pastry chef Maurits van der Vooren had died from the effects of cancer. 

De Dessertclub

Maurits worked at various Michelin-starred restaurants, including De Vrienden van Jacob, De Zwethheul and Latour. Two and a half years ago, he started working for himself as a pastry chef. And what a pastry chef he was; his Instagram feed is filled with unbelievably beautiful creations. He was also closely involved with the successful dessert restaurant De Dessertclub. ‘I worked seven days a week, was always tired and was losing blood.’ At first, the GP dismissed the symptoms as something harmless, until the opposite proved true: bowel cancer with metastases in the liver. ‘And they can’t operate on the ones in the liver,’ Maurits previously told Misset Horeca.

15 Michelin stars

In October last year, a large benefit dinner was organized for Maurits to fund treatment in Germany—he had been told in the Netherlands that there was no further treatment available. Fellow chefs and pastry chefs—with a total of 15 Michelin stars, including Soenil Bahadoer**, Onno Kokmeijer**, Erik van Loo**and the German Thomas Buhner***—cooked a ten-course dinner that evening. Maurits was greeted with thunderous applause afterward. Goosebumps.

But even the toughest course of chemotherapy could not save Maurits. He died yesterday, leaving behind a wife and two children. We wish his family, friends and colleagues much strength.

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Source: Horeca Inside, Misset Horeca, image: Instagram