Category: restaurant

Koevoet – Best Traditional Italian Food in Amsterdam

Restaurant Koevoet is located in the most Dutch of Amsterdam neighborhoods, the Jordaan. And its name, as well as the building and interior will make you think of an old-school Amsterdam brown cafe.

Quite to the contrary, Koevoet is pure, traditional Italian. It’s been run by the same team of Italians for a long time and they all live and breathe la dolce vita! All staff speak excellent Dutch and English, but they manage to sprinkle enough Italian words into each conversation to make you think you’re in Italy. And they really love and treasure everything food and Italian. The menu is geared towards people going for starter, pasta and main. The coffee is strong, short and smooth. And the limoncello on the house mandatory.

restaurant koevoet amsterdam - business card

Not surprisingly, Koevoet excels at simple Italian dishes. Look for mozzarella with Parma ham, home made ravioli, grilled fish or scaloppine on the menu. I love the Carbonara – perfect al dente pasta with an egg-y sauce with plenty of pancetta. And nothing beats the burrata for starters. It’s so unbelievably good that it’s worth the trip alone. It’s not on the regular menu, availability depending on delivery from Italy.

The wine list is short, good and – well – Italian.

Restaurant Koevoet is very popular and has few tables. Make your reservation well in advance.

Restaurant Koevoet
Lindenstraat 17
1015 KV Amsterdam
Tel: +31 (0)20 6240846

restaurant koevoet amsterdam - burrata

Praise for Amsterdam Restaurants

The end of the year is award time, also in food circles. The “Lekker Top 500 Restaurants” of the Netherlands magazine hit the shelves earlier this week and the “Bib Gourmand Benelux (Dutch)” will be available as of tomorrow.

Lekker ranks Dutch restaurants from 1 to 500, declaring a winner and a top 10. Amsterdam is home to eleven of the top 100, including Michelin stars Aan de Poel, Ciel Bleu, La Rive, Ron Blaauw and Yamazato. Up and coming Le Restaurant in Latin Quarter De Pijp is at number 99.

The Bib Gourmand Benelux, Michelin’s price for value list and breeding ground for future Michelin stars, lists 93 restaurants in the Netherlands of which 10 in Amsterdam.

No Amsterdam restaurant made both lists, with obviously the Michelin stars not eligible for the Bib Gourmand list. Also none of dutchgrub’s Best Amsterdam Restaurants made either list. They tend to be smaller and more personal with a less traditionally French menu that mixes different cuisines.

On November 23rd the Michelin stars for the Netherlands will be announced to round off the award period.

Poor Service in Amsterdam Restaurants

employees must wash handsThe New York food scene is the best in the world, so this foodie likes to keep an eye on what’s cooking in the big apple. This weekend an article in the New York Times about “One Hundred Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do” caught my eye.

Service in Amsterdam restaurants often is poor. And I am frequently struck by the rather pretentious behavior of many Amsterdam waiters that make you feel that you’re lucky being served at all, that your presence is causing them all sorts of unexpected troubles, and is terribly untimely and utterly inconvenient.

I guess the publication of this list means that not everything is perfect in New York. But at least people still complain and try to change the situation. In Amsterdam, people pretty much got used to poor service and just put up with it. Where, for example, rule number 3 of the New York Times article urges to “Never refuse to seat three guests because a fourth has not yet arrived”, Amsterdam has restaurants like L’Angoletto that make it a house rule. And you’re lucky if waiters fix your table upon request as opposed to the very reasonable rule number 5 that “Tables should be level without anyone asking. Fix it before guests are seated”.

Best Authentic Dutch Restaurants in Amsterdam

My lists of “Best Amsterdam Restaurants”, “Best Amsterdam Pizza” and “Best Amsterdam Terraces” are very popular. And since people often ask me for recommendations of typical local cuisine, I put together a list of “Best Authentic Dutch Restaurants” in Amsterdam.

I was a little torn about this list since, frankly, I am unimpressed about Dutch cuisine and there are better, non local food options in Amsterdam. But of course there is good authentic Dutch food in Amsterdam and I want to help you find the best pancakes, rijsttafel or French fries.

The list is broad, ranging from French fries on the street to high-end dining and from regional farmer’s fare from North Holland to exotic rijsttafels from Indonesia. Please check out dutchgrub’s “Best Authentic Dutch Restaurants” in Amsterdam and tell us about your Dutch food experiences in the comments!

Lekker Top Ten Dutch Restaurants

lekker top 500 dutch restaurants guideLekker is a printed restaurant guide with an influential yearly top 500 restaurants of the Netherlands list. The 2010 edition will go on sale mid November, but apparently top 10 apparently has already leaked out (Dutch).

Long time favorites Oud Sluis in Sluis and De Librije in Zwolle are still numbers one and two.

And after not having been represented in the top 10 of the previous edition, Amsterdam is back. Michelin starred restaurant La Rive in the Amstelhotel has climbed 3 spots from number 11 to number 8!