When I spoke with Jonnie Boer, he was chef of De Librije in Zwolle, The Netherlands, a kitchen that has held three Michelin stars for more than two decades. The book refers to him as the late Jonnie Boer.
What Boer speaks to in the book is a disposition rather than a moment of revelation. When he started cooking in the 1980s, gastronomy in The Netherlands barely existed; serious kitchens assumed French ingredients and French technique. A young Dutch cook who wanted to build a cuisine on the local larder of his own region faced a long road, and he walked it without yielding on quality. The constraint became the path, and the path produced De Librije. He evaluates people the same way he built the restaurant. Every applicant spends a few days on trial at the station, and what he looks for is passion, perseverance and the right personality rather than experience. He stays calm, works step by step and keeps a view of the whole, on the principle that people perform better when they are treated well.
“We always have applicants to our team on trial for a few days. Experience is not that important. What we look for is people with passion, perseverance and the right personality.” Jonnie Boer, chef, De Librije
His creative practice runs through a little notebook he carries everywhere, where first thoughts are scribbled as drawings, and through sessions a few times each year in which the team brings the new ideas to life. Some turn into disasters. Others become something spectacular when one ingredient is added or removed. He is clear that creativity belongs to the whole operation and is the daily expectation he sets for it.
In the book, Jonnie Boer appears in Chapter 1, The Calling, for the disposition that formed him before the kitchen did; in Chapter 4, First the Team, for how he hires on character; in Chapter 5, Giving the Keys, for a calm leadership style that hands the credit to the team; in Chapter 6, The Creative Act, for the notebook, the team sessions and the constraint that shaped his cuisine; and in Chapter 7, In Pursuit of Perfection, for the year De Librije earned its first Michelin star and a substantiated bad review in the same season, and for how the kitchen absorbed it.
“It was a terrible feeling and we didn’t sleep properly for a week. But it only made us more determined. We believed in what we were doing back then.” Jonnie Boer, chef, De Librije