Looks like photoshop or at least very touched up by computer to me and probably not even a real color.

Once you sand it down to bare wood try a stain with green in it to counteract the red like Varathane Aged Wheat. Testing it out on a scrap or inconspicuous place first would be best. Your inspiration pic looks great!

It could be rift or quarter-sawn oak. That's what is used to get around the open grain of white and red oak that turns dark when flat cut is used. If you have golden oak cabinets, they're flat cut. After you strip and sand all your surfaces front and back you'll need to possibly treat the wood with a bleaching product and then fill the open grain with light paint-like opaque stain. Ceruse. Then sand and stain. Then finish. Sand between for any grain raise. Ciranova has good products for these steps. General Finishes is another source. This'll be a significant time investment diy or prohibitive to farm out.

IKEA Vedhamn uses non open grain different species European Oak for their cabinets. 25 year warranty. Made in Hungary. About $700 for a 36" 3 drawer base cabinet.

Hallmark Terra has two different tones using French Oak. Link.

If you choose new, you can get all wide drawer base cabinets and reconfigure your layout for better function and more current style.

dan, do you know of any US-based cabinet shops using the European oak you've mentioned?

Many get doors/drawers from Conestoga or Walzcraft. When I called both a few months ago they did not yet have any of their products available using any European Oak species. US cabinet makers will probably use rift cut white oak. Unfortunately, it oxidizes yellow after 5 years whereas European Oak doesn't as much.

IKEA produces in Hungary. Hallmark in Vietnam. DOCA is made in Spain.

Most of the European Oak flooring widely available comes from SE Asia using some of the 300 oak species other than NA red or white oak. Hakwood flooring is produced in Denmark.

That is really interesting.

I associate oak - in the US context - with warm and honey, tinge of orange tones, and prominent grain, on aged pieces.

E.g. a old rolltop desk in my foyer, from the time when a retiree from the railroad was given, as retirement gifts, a watch and the desk he’d worked on for his whole career. He kept his desk until he died, none of his kids wanted the old man’s furniture, I drove 200 miles to save that old railroad desk from the dumpster. It is oak, the way aged American oak looks after a hundred years of wear and use and oiling and waxing.

Based on most of the posts here, what people think oak looks like, or want it to look like, is cool, neutral brown with a hint of grayness and faint, unobtrusive grain.

Almost a Danish, modern look.

I think people shouldn’t use US oak, meaning most oak available at aeni-custom and custom cabinet shops in the US, if that’s the look they want. Surely there is a different wood, that is commonly available in the US, that looks more like the typical “I want my oak cabinets to look like this” inspo pic?