good amsterdam food from a trusted source – not a vending machine.
Hotel Okura is offering a sort of “anti restaurant week” to celebrate keeping its Michelin stars and Bib Gourmand. For € 120,= you can book a menu that starts off with three traditional Japanese courses at one-star Yamazato. You will then head up 23 floors and enjoy three courses at two-star French cuisine Ciel Bleu.
Both restaurants are located in Hotel Okura at Ferdinand Bolstraat 333. The offer is available every Sunday until February 22. For reservations, call +31 (0) 20 – 6787 450.
Restaurant critic Johannes van Dam recently awarded Trattoria di Donna Sofia a 9 on a scale of 10. I think it’s a 6- at best.
Donna Sofia is located on the corner of 2e Anjeliersdwarsstraat and Anjeliersstraat. Good Italian restaurants in Amsterdam are few and far between, so I remembered when we were in the area and trying to decide where to have dinner. And I thought it would be fun to review van Dam’s review!
We got a table and I ordered some of the dishes that van Dam raved about. Zucchini parmigiana, scaloppine with truffle sauce and panna cotta. We also had involtini, rigatoni with eggplant sauce and tiramisu. The service was prompt, friendly and attentive. The restaurant was small and had an authentic trattoria feel. And the food was good. Especially van Dam’s recommendations, the sauce with real truffles (“a triumph”) and the panna cotta (“perfect consistency”).
Unfortunately not all dishes had the same quality. The involtini were served lukewarm. The rigatoni were undercooked. The meat of the scallopine was too thick and chewy. And the tiramisu had a strange spongy consistency and was too sweet.
Van Dam called the wine list short but extensive and settled for the house wine. We were delighted to find a ripasso on the list – our favorite wine and quite popular in Amsterdam these days. Unfortunately it was the worst ripasso I have had in a long time with little body and completely lacking the ripasso’s usual smoothness.
Finally there were inexcusable issues with the basics. The water carafe had a nasty cloudy film and the bread was cheap baguette that seemed to have come from the Albert Heijn around the corner.
Unfortunately the quest for good Italian restaurants continues. When you’re in the Jordaan and want Italian food, I find Cafe de Curtis much better than Donna Sofia.
This is an old version of our Best Amsterdam Restaurants list. We’ve left this page up because of the many great comments below. Please go to the current list of Best Amsterdam Restaurants for up to date recommendations.
Everyone has their own list of best restaurants. Here are my favorites in Amsterdam! Created over years of exploring the Amsterdam restaurant scene. Trying out new restaurants, analyzing the experience, returning to the good ones, and exchanging thoughts and ideas with other Amsterdam foodies. Then venturing out to distant places, coming back to Amsterdam, comparing new culinary experiences with the best of Dutch grub. Adding names to the list and removing others.
The result is Amsterdam’s top four restaurants: Balthazar’s Keuken, De Kas, Marius, and De Witte Uyl – in alphabetical order. They share a modern French or International menu, the use of purely organic ingredients and an incredible drive and passion for food. Yet each restaurant has its own distinct personality – a bohemian buzz at Balthazar’s Keuken in the heart of the Jordaan, the incredibly hip but remote greenhouse setting of De Kas, Marius’ individualism and provincial style near the IJ, and De Witte Uyl’s way of thinking globally and acting locally in cosmopolitan Pijp.
Balthazar’s Keuken
Balthazar’s Keuken is a small and crowded restaurant located in a former blacksmith’s workshop in the heart of the Jordaan. The staff tries hard to make all guests feel at home and the setting is certainly intimate, if slightly crammed. The food is a set three course menu. The first course usually is a mixed appetizers platter, presented on a sort of elevated stand as the large plate hardly fits the table. The crowd is mixed, from tourists to locals and from young to old. There is a bohemian feel to the restaurant that is designed around an open kitchen with an ominous “no access” sign.
www.balthazarskeuken.nl
Elandsgracht 108
1016 VA Amsterdam
Tel: +31 (0)20 420 21 14
De Kas
De Kas is a large restaurant and nursery, located in a former greenhouse on the outskirts of Amsterdam. The concept is based on serving only food produced on associated farms around Amsterdam. There is an annex with an herb garden that you can visit in between courses. The food is a healthy and organic 3 course fixed menu, prepared meticulously and presented with lots of attention to detail by the attentive service. The inside spacious and hip, as is the crowd. The wine list is extensive.
www.restaurantdekas.nl
Kamerlingh Onneslaan 3
1097 DE Amsterdam
Tel: +31 (0)20 462 45 62
Marius
Update October 11th, 2010: After a brief sabbatical, Marius has reopened in the same location as of late September 2010.
Marius is a small restaurant with a provincial style decor and located somewhat off the beaten path. A Chez Panisse trained chef runs Marius with a small staff, serving a semi-set four course chef’s menu that changes daily but leaves some options. The kitchen is organic, modern French. The mood is fun and upbeat, dominated by the chef’s laid back attitude and the guests high spirits from being rewarded by the food for having made it all the way over to Marius.
No web site
Barentszstraat 243
1013 NM Amsterdam
Tel: +31 (0)20 422 78 80
De Witte Uyl
De Witte Uyl is different. From the 1920s interior in which no two chairs are the same to the unusual menu from which guests pick two main courses but no starters. Knowledgeable hostess Annemieke is the glue that ties it all together. De Witte Uyl has a seasonal menu that changes four times a year and often is inspired by recent trips of the owners to far away places. The dishes are a combination of tradition and inspiration, prepared form the finest but also most ecologically sustainable ingredients. The wine list is extensive and Annemieke makes great recommendations. The chocolate board – hunks of chocolate that you will attack with an ice pick – is legendary.
www.witteuyl.com
Frans Halsstraat 26
1072 BR Amsterdam
Tel: +31 (0)20 670 04 58
Speaking of bird, bird, birds… I have been meaning to post about the Thai Bird for a while! It’s one of my favorite places to eat in Amsterdam.
The Thai Bird is actually two places, located across from each other on Zeedijk near the Chinese temple. One is the Thai Bird Snack Bar, which dates back to the eighties when the Zeedijk still was dangerous and to be avoided. Undeterred, consistently good food at low prices lead to success and later to the opening of the much larger restaurant by the same owners.
The Zeedijk is the street that connects Amsterdam’s Nieuwmarkt with the Central Station. You can still feel that it must have been an important artery during the glory days. Bordering on the red light district, it was in disgraceful state in the early eighties, rife with criminality. It has made a roaring return since and today is a lively mix of Chinese shops and restaurants and traditional Dutch brown cafes serving Pils, Bitterballen and Jenever.
Both the restaurant and the snack bar are about food, not looks. The snack bar is small, usually crammed with people and simple but clean. The restaurant is large, meandering up and down and left and right behind its small entrance. Don’t be turned off by the appearance. Do walk in and enjoy the excellent food, which is authentic, fresh and always well executed.
Also don’t let yourself be turned off by the crowds. There is usually a line of people waiting at the entrance of the restaurant, especially on weekends. But somehow it seems to clear more quickly than you would think. The snack bar is the same. It always looks packed, but somehow the staff finds a way to squeeze in a few extra people.
Go to the restaurant if you are with a group. Otherwise go for the snack bar and try to sit on one of the high bar stools behind the large window and enjoy the steady flow of tourists and freaks!
Thai Bird Snack Bar, Zeedijk 77. Thai Bird Restaurant, Zeedijk 72-74. http://www.thai-bird.nl/.
I am often disappointed after visits to what has been described as a ‘leuk restaurantje’ – a nice little restaurant – that people found ‘gezellig’ – a cozy sort of fun. ‘Leuk’ and ‘gezellig’ are superficial and indiscriminate words – and often the restaurants are likewise, not worth a foodie’s time.
La Oliva, a new Pintxos y Vinos bar on Egelantiersstraat is like that. It’s beautifully designed and heavily frequented. The food is average and high priced and the service unfriendly, inattentive and ignorant.
La Oliva is located in the heart of the Jordaan in the space formerly occupied by organic food cafe De Vrije Vork. It’s one of those locations where no restaurant ever seems to survive for a long time…
We were out and about the Jordaan, checking out the contemporary galleries, having a great time deciphering the works of the Sauerkids at gallery KOCHXBOS. We wanted a glass of wine to warm up and relive the experience, remembered the new wine bar and decided to try it out.
It looks beautiful – a dark colored but fresh design very much centered around Mediterranean food. There are large shelves stocked with wine bottles, hams hanging from the ceiling, a glass counter top full of cheese and an enormous buffet of pintxos, Basque style tapas.
It was all downhill from there.
Upon entering, the waiter gestured us to sit at the bar next to the pintxos where there were was space for one and a half guests at best. We did manage to sit elsewhere but then it took forever and two unanswered requests to be handed a wine list. The wine list is limited, about 10 Spanish wines, half of them available by the glass. I quite like red wines from Priorat and saw one was available only by the bottle. When asking if they might be able to serve a glass I was silenced by a stern note that the menu clearly stated that it was by the glass only. We ordered two other red wines, which the waiter mixed up. When we pointed this out it turned out that he had no idea about wine at all.
The wines, a 2006 Bodegas Olivares Jumilla Panarroz and a Valdepeñas house wine were ok. We were quite enjoying ourselves until a large group entered La Oliva. They were regulars and personally greeted. And within minutes they claimed the table we and another couple were sitting at entirely, pushing us to the end with the help of the waiting staff who didn’t even bother asking if we minded moving.
La Oliva is ok for a drink and some people watching when you’re hanging out in the Jordaan. But don’t go out of your way for a visit and be prepared to look after yourself when ordering wine and food and to protect your space…
The end of the year is list time! And in good style Amsterdam city magazine NL20 has published a list of newly opened restaurants that they got around to reviewing in 2008.
The NL20 list covers about 25 new Amsterdam restaurants organized by neighborhood.
Mashua on Prinsengracht is one of the reviews of restaurants located in the center of Amsterdam. Mashua was created by the people running Casa Peru, so I went there soon after its opening upon their recommendation. Unfortunately Mashua does not have the home-style cooking and service that made me love Casa Peru. And even worse, Casa Peru has since also lost its laid back charm.
NL20 also managed to get a reservation and write a review for much talked about Momo, which is still elusive to me, and Heerlijk! where I went for restaurant week.
Some notable mentions outside of the center are The Colour Kitchen, the Dutch version of Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, Italian traiteur Frenzi Cucina that sells a good Ripasso wine and dessert only restaurant Sucre; all in the west of Amsterdam.
Right next door from Sucre, but missing from the NL20 list, is one of my favorite new restaurants of 2008: Restaurant Blauw on Amstelveenseweg serves a refreshingly different, modern Indonesian cuisine.
And again just a few steps further on Amstelveenseweg is Umoja, one of Mapplr’s favorite additions to the Amsterdam restaurant scene of the last five years.
What’s your favorite new restaurant in Amsterdam? For inspiration see the recently opened section of Dinnersite, which has a more complete and searchable list of new restaurants in the Netherlands.