The Vlaai Pilgrimage

Vlaai is the signature bake of Limburg, the Netherlands' southernmost province: a wide, round, thin-crusted pastry flan filled with fruit (cherry is the classic, but apricot, plum, strawberry and a creamy rice pudding version are all traditional) and baked until the pastry is crisp and the filling is bubbling. It's not a deep pie - it's flat and generous, meant to be sliced and shared, and it appears at every birthday, every celebration, every coffee morning and every Sunday across Limburg. The rest of the Netherlands knows about it; Limburg owns it.

Maastricht is where to eat it because Maastricht is a different Netherlands entirely. This is the far south, pressed against the Belgian and German borders, with an accent nobody in Amsterdam can understand, a Burgundian culture of eating and drinking well, cobbled squares, candlelit restaurants, and the Bisschopsmolen - the oldest working water mill and bakery in the Netherlands, which has been grinding grain and baking since the 7th century. A slice of fresh-baked vlaai at the Bisschopsmolen, still warm, with a coffee by the mill, is one of those moments that doesn't need a Michelin star to be perfect.