Chef with a refreshing view of taste

With partner Carmen and his team, Pieter-Jan runs restaurant Amaranth in Merelbeke, East Flanders. There, he shows how creative and versatile vegan cuisine is. His gastronomy tells a story with few words, but with even more flavor.

“I use cooking as a language to communicate with my guests,” Pieter-Jan opens. “I immerse them in a refreshing way of looking at food, with top quality organic and plant-based ingredients. Craft, passion and creativity are key. I see it as my contribution to a more sustainable society. Our kitchen is accessible to everyone who faces the future with an open vision.”

Learn to taste

As a chef, he works with taste every day. “Taste is something you learn and that you permanently refine over the course of your life based on your own experience and experience. For example, the first time you taste chicory as a child, you probably don't like it because of the bitterness. Only through repetition do you know what it really tastes like and how many different types of chicory there are. Because hydroponically grown chicory tastes very different from ground chicory. And the cooking technique also adds something. Fried chicory tastes different than braised or steamed.”

“You store all those flavors in your memory. As it were, you develop a taste library that is constantly expanding through tasting, by experimenting. Your taste palette is getting wider and deeper. Just like you develop vocabulary through meetings and conversations. In that sense, taste is also a type of language, a way of expressing how we perceive reality.”

Layered taste palette

Taste is also related to time and culture, says Pieter-Jan. “Our ancestors' cuisine was completely different from ours today. And what we like here in Flanders differs from elsewhere in the world. Taste also has a social component. Parents consciously and unconsciously tell their children a lot of things about what they like. That social also plays a role in other ways. For example, when a wine connoisseur recommends a particular wine, we tend to believe that.”

“After all, the enthusiasm, the explanation and the framework determine how much we like something. That is why we also pay a lot of attention to this in Amaranth. On the other hand, gastronomy is also about being in the moment, enjoying the plate you're served and discovering new flavors.”

A new world also gradually opened up for Pieter-Jan himself. “I used to be a flexitarian, but I always had an open mind about the vegetable kitchen and was also busy with herbs. At a vegan home dinner years ago, I tasted a cheesecake, but with cashews instead of dairy. That set a lot in motion for me. Suddenly, I realized the possibility of doing things differently. That became my mission. From that point to opening our own restaurant was quite a journey, although it all came very naturally.”

Cooking with impact

With Amaranth, he resolutely opts for plant-based cuisine. “We don't use animal products, but we do strive to offer a full range of flavours. We work for the widest possible audience, and then you need a certain familiarity with flavors. It's not that we're imitating products of animal origin, but we do base ourselves on the flavours behind them. Just because, as people, we love that taste.”

For Pieter-Jan, the restaurant is the place where he can express his creativity. “Amaranth is a kind of demonstration space about what sophisticated, gourmet plant-based cuisine can be. We are a taste library of natural products that we want to enthuse people. With my books, I can then reach a different audience. And that's how we try to convince people of our vision and approach. In that sense, like Robi, we are an impact company.”

The taste of water

Like Amaranth, Robi is also concerned with taste, but with that of water. And so they found each other fairly quickly as partners. “We are activists in the things we do. Not by shouting loudly, but by making a difference where we can every day. And using tap water is 100% in line with that vision. Why transport bottled water when you can also tap it locally?”

“Water is a carrier and makes it possible to perceive taste. It is also the basis for all the dishes we make, from the broths to the coffee. So the taste of the water we use here is very important to us. We want to be able to determine that taste, just like that of the dishes we serve. Water with the meal serves to reset the taste, as a kind of moment of rest between different dishes. It should therefore be fairly neutral, without too many minerals. The still water that we tap here with the Robi therefore has a different composition than sparkling water due to an adapted filter.”

Bright future

Being creative and creating plant-based dishes remains Pieter-Jan's great motivation. “We want to continue to build on that in the future, with the restaurant, the books and the other ways of telling our story. For us, choosing vegan gastronomy is not marketing, but simply who we are.”

“We think caring for animals is important. Because life is a gift for everyone, people and animals. In addition, we must learn to value simplicity and peace again. We lose ourselves in side issues, while we need to pay more attention to the essentials. We live in paradise, but we don't always see it.”

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