Dutch Food in Amsterdam: What to Eat and What It Tells You About the City

A local guide to the dishes, habits and histories that explain how Amsterdam eats.

Written by Alexandra, Founder of Who Is Amsterdam

When I first came to Amsterdam, one of the things I genuinely had to get used to was Dutch lunch.

I grew up in Germany, and suddenly lunch was basically:

Bread. Cheese. Done.

I remember thinking: Oh my God. How am I going to survive this?

Dutch food can seem incredibly practical when you first meet it. And, if I am being slightly mean, sometimes a little boring.

Then I discovered bitterballen. And kroketten. And appeltaart. And proper Dutch cheese. And stamppot on a freezing day when the wind had spent three hours trying to enter through every opening in my coat.

I changed my mind.

The more time I spent here, the more I understood that a lot of traditional Dutch cooking is not trying to impress you with technique. It is trying to feed you properly.

You have worked all day. You are hungry.

What are we doing?

Potatoes. Vegetables. Meat. Gravy. Done.

Nobody is asking the carrot to become foam.

And when that kind of grandmother-style food is done well, it is delicious.

Then there are the snacks.

The Dutch are VERY good at frying things. Bitterballen. Kroketten. Frikandellen. Kaassoufflés. Entire walls of hot snacks waiting behind little metal doors.

We even have a reasonable claim to the modern air fryer: Dutch inventor Fred van der Weij developed the consumer design that Philips later brought to market. The Dutch Order of Inventors documents his work. Apparently ordinary frying was no longer enough.

But Dutch food and Amsterdam food are not exactly the same thing.

Amsterdam is incredibly international. The city has been shaped by trade, migration, empire, neighbourhood communities and generations of cooks bringing recipes with them. Today you also have brilliant chefs taking traditional Dutch ingredients and dishes and giving them completely new flavours and interpretations.

So this is not just a list of things to eat.

It is a guide to what Dutch food tells you about Dutch people, and what Amsterdam’s food tells you about Amsterdam.

How Dutch People Actually Eat

Before the food list, it helps to understand the rhythm.

Yes, lunch really can be bread with cheese. In fact, Holland.com describes bread and cheese as typical at both breakfast and lunch. This is not a punishment. This is a normal meal.

You will see sandwiches with cheese, cold cuts, peanut butter, hagelslag and other toppings eaten at desks, in cafés, on trains and at home. Lunch does not always need to become an event.

Dinner also tends to happen earlier than in many other European cultures. The Hague International Centre notes that a warm Dutch dinner is often eaten at around 18:00. If you are used to beginning dinner at 9 p.m., this can require emotional adjustment.

And then there is the borrel.

A borrel is drinks with friends, colleagues or family, usually with snacks on the table. It can happen after work, late afternoon or early evening. On Friday you may hear vrijmibo: vrijdagmiddagborrel, or Friday-afternoon drinks.

This is where bitterballen suddenly make complete cultural sense.

You are not necessarily sitting down for dinner. You are having a beer or wine. Conversation continues. Someone realises nobody has eaten for several hours. Fried things appear.

Civilisation is restored.

1. Stroopwafel: Fresh, Warm and Not Wearing Half a Sweet Shop

A stroopwafel is two thin waffle discs pressed around syrup. The supermarket version is excellent with coffee.

A fresh one from a market is a different experience.

The waffle is warm and slightly crisp around the edges. The syrup softens as you hold it. Eating one without getting caramel on a finger suggests exceptional discipline or insufficient enthusiasm.

Please start with the classic version.

A good stroopwafel does not need chocolate, marshmallows, sweets, pistachio cream and half a biscuit aisle balanced on top of it.

One topping may be pleasant.

Seven indicate that the waffle has lost control of the situation.

You will see enormous decorated stroopwafels in the centre being sold as TikTok attractions for prices that make Dutch people quietly reconsider the economy.

That is not how most locals think of a stroopwafel.

Go to a proper market and get one fresh. A normal fresh stroopwafel should cost a few euros rather than becoming a €10 architectural project. At Albert Cuyp Market, Rudi’s Original Stroopwafels currently lists its fresh original at €3 and its chocolate version at €4.

Fresh. Warm. Syrup.

That is all it needs.

If you want to make a market lunch out of it, the Self-Guided De Pijp Food Tour moves through Albert Cuyp Market and nearby streets, mixing Dutch snacks with the international food that makes De Pijp feel like Amsterdam rather than a Dutch-theme park.

2. Bitterballen: The Food of the Borrel

Bitterballen are small breaded balls filled with thick ragout, fried until crisp and served with mustard.

They arrive looking harmless.

They are not.

The outside may be ready to eat. The centre is holding the temperature of a recently formed planet.

Wait a moment.

Open one carefully.

Pretend this was always the plan.

Traditional bitterballen usually contain beef or veal ragout, although vegetarian versions with mushrooms, cheese and other fillings are now common.

But the important thing is the setting.

Bitterballen belong with a borrel. A drink arrives. Everyone is talking. A bowl or plate of bitterballen appears with mustard. Nobody turns it into a formal dining experience.

I amsterdam calls bitterballen the ultimate Dutch pub snack, and that is exactly how I would approach them. Order them in a brown café or neighbourhood bar, not because you need to complete a Dutch-food checklist but because you are already sitting there having a drink.

One warning.

Do not bite directly into the first one because everyone at the table is watching.

They are watching because they know what happens next.

3. Herring: Try It the Amsterdam Way

Herring is one of those foods that visitors often turn into a performance before they have even tasted it.

You have probably seen the image: hold the fish by the tail, tilt your head back and lower it into your mouth.

Yes, people in the Netherlands do eat herring like that.

But if you are in Amsterdam, there is another detail worth knowing.

Here it is very common for herring to be served cut into pieces with onions and pickles, often eaten with a little pick, or ordered as a broodje haring in a soft roll. I amsterdam even notes that Amsterdam herring stalls have their own way of cutting it.

So if you want to do the famous tail technique for the experience, go for it.

If you want something closer to how you are likely to see it eaten around Amsterdam, order it in pieces with uitjes and zuur, or get the sandwich.

The fish is cured rather than cooked, with a soft, rich, salty flavour. Buy it from a proper fish stall with good turnover.

Herring also has a serious place in the city’s history. Amsterdam City Archives describes it as an important food and valuable commodity for centuries, with an old saying claiming that Amsterdam’s prosperity was built on “herring bones”.

The Self-Guided Jordaan Food Tour includes a neighbourhood fish stop where you can try herring or kibbeling alongside other Dutch classics.

4. Kibbeling: For Anyone Not Emotionally Ready for Herring

Image Source: Wikipedia

Not everybody wants cured herring during a holiday.

This does not reveal anything worrying about your character.

Order kibbeling.

Kibbeling is battered pieces of white fish, fried and served hot with a creamy herb or garlic sauce. Add lemon. Eat it immediately.

Batter loses morale when carried around for too long.

The name historically referred to pieces from around the cod cheek, although different white fish can be used today, so ask at the stall if that matters to you.

Fish markets and neighbourhood stalls are the right environment. Albert Cuyp, Dappermarkt and Ten Katemarkt are all good places to encounter it.

Herring asks you to make a decision about texture.

Kibbeling arrives wearing batter and carrying sauce.

The negotiation is shorter.

5. Dutch Fries: Commit to the Sauce

Dutch fries are thick-cut, crisp and commonly served in a paper cone with enough sauce to create structural questions.

Mayonnaise is the standard.

Ketchup remains available. Nobody will report you.

But there are more interesting options.

Patat speciaal usually combines mayonnaise, curry ketchup and chopped onions.

Patat oorlog combines mayonnaise, peanut satay sauce and onions. The name translates as “war fries”, which has not aged particularly gracefully.

The food works better than the name.

Salty fries. Creamy mayonnaise. Sweet, savoury peanut sauce. Raw onion cutting through the whole situation.

Some shops say patat. Others say friet or frites.

The potato remains calm about the disagreement.

Look for a busy specialist shop cooking fresh batches rather than somewhere selling fries beside pizza, waffles, kebabs, cocktails and seven types of souvenir.

A menu can have too many responsibilities.

6. Kroket: Put It on Bread and Go to Van Dobben

A kroket deserves its own section because it is not simply a longer bitterbal.

The family resemblance is obvious: crisp breadcrumb coating, thick savoury ragout inside, mustard nearby. But a kroket is larger, usually cylindrical and perfectly capable of becoming lunch.

One of the simplest Dutch lunches is a broodje kroket: a hot kroket in a soft bread roll, often with mustard.

If you want a classic Amsterdam version, my recommendation is Van Dobben.

Eetsalon Van Dobben opened in central Amsterdam in 1945, and the croquet has been on the menu from the beginning. This is not a reinvention with truffle dust and edible flowers. It is a bread roll, a good kroket and mustard.

Exactly.

If you want the fun, fast Dutch snack-bar experience, FEBO is also worth seeing once. You choose a hot snack from the little doors in the automat wall, pay, take it and continue with your day.

This is an extremely Dutch solution to the question: what if lunch required even less ceremony?

7. Poffertjes & Dutch Pancakes: Same Family, Very Different Commitment

Poffertjes are small, round and puffed, cooked in a special pan and served warm with butter and powdered sugar.

Calling them tiny pancakes is accurate enough for the first ten seconds.

The texture is softer and puffier. A good poffertje has enough butter to make the powdered sugar stick to everything it encounters.

Including you.

Traditional butter and sugar is the right place to begin.

Pannenkoeken are the larger relative.

Dutch pancakes are much thinner than American pancakes and generally thicker than French crêpes. They can be sweet or savoury: apple and cinnamon, bacon and cheese, powdered sugar and syrup, or combinations that become increasingly difficult to explain.

One is a snack that arrives in a pile and encourages misplaced confidence.

The other can occupy most of a plate and count as lunch.

Markets are excellent for poffertjes, while pancake houses give you the full sit-down version. The Private De Pijp Food Tour is useful if you want a local guide connecting Dutch market snacks with the neighbourhood’s wider food culture rather than treating each bite as an isolated attraction.

8. Appeltaart: The Correct Response to “Shall We Have Coffee?”

Dutch appeltaart is deep, dense and capable of carrying an afternoon.

The crust is firm and buttery. The filling contains thick pieces of apple, cinnamon and often raisins. Whipped cream usually arrives beside it in a quantity suggesting the café has concerns about your energy levels.

Accept the help.

Winkel 43 in the Jordaan is the famous name. Café Papeneiland is another historic option beside the canal. Both can be busy, and they are not the only two slices of apple pie in Amsterdam.

Neighbourhood bakeries and cafés may serve excellent appeltaart without requiring a queue, a weather strategy and twenty minutes of standing.

Look for apples that still feel like apples. The filling should not become sweet paste. The crust should hold together long enough for the fork to perform its duties.

The Self-Guided Jordaan Food Tour finishes with apple pie in a brown café after a route through several traditional neighbourhood flavours.

The pie makes more sense after the Jordaan does.

9. Ossenworst: An Amsterdam Original That Rarely Goes Viral

Ossenworst is much more closely tied to Amsterdam than many foods placed on a generic Netherlands checklist.

It is a raw or lightly cured beef sausage, traditionally seasoned with spices. The texture is soft. The flavour is savoury and gently spiced.

The phrase “raw beef sausage” may have created a larger emotional response than the taste will.

It is commonly served in slices with mustard and pickles. Order it in an old tasting room, butcher or brown café. Add cheese and bread if you are sharing.

Then leave it alone.

Ossenworst does not need to be turned into a tower.

This is the kind of traditional Amsterdam food travellers often miss because it does not arrive from a photogenic press, nobody queues around the block and nobody coats it in chocolate.

Good.

The sausage has maintained its dignity.

10. Dutch Cheese: Yes, Sometimes Lunch Really Is Just This

We have reached the food that caused my first Dutch lunch crisis.

Cheese.

On bread.

End of meeting.

Dutch cheese absolutely deserves more than being treated as something you sample from a tourist shop between two museums.

Cheese has been part of Dutch food culture for centuries, and Holland.com specifically notes how normal bread with cheese is at breakfast and lunch. Gouda is the internationally famous name, but within that world there is an enormous difference between young, creamy cheese and firmer, nuttier aged varieties.

If you are tasting, compare jong or jong belegen with oude kaas. The difference in texture and intensity is far more useful than simply asking for “Gouda”.

Try cheese with mustard. Try goat’s cheese. Try something aged until little crunchy crystals appear in it.

Then, at some point, put a slice on bread and understand that millions of Dutch lunches have required no additional plot.

The Self-Guided Jordaan Food Tour includes a cheese stop with young and aged varieties, which makes a much better introduction than choosing the wheel with the most windmills on the label.

11. Dutch Winter Comfort Food: Stamppot & Erwtensoep

Image Source: Taste Atlas

This is where the philosophy of traditional Dutch cooking becomes very easy to understand.

Cold outside?

Potatoes. Vegetables. Sausage. Gravy.

Problem solved.

Stamppot is made by mashing potatoes with vegetables. Common versions use kale, sauerkraut, endive, or carrots and onions. Rookworst, a smoked sausage, often sits on top or beside it, and gravy is generally involved.

This sentence may not have created much excitement.

Wait until February.

The wind has spent the afternoon entering through every opening in your coat. Your hands are cold. Somebody places a warm plate in front of you.

Now the idea improves.

Image Source: Taste Atlas

Erwtensoep, often called snert, belongs in the same winter-comfort category. It is a very thick split-pea soup usually built around peas, vegetables, pork and rookworst, often served with rye bread and bacon.

The traditional joke is that a spoon should be able to stand upright in it.

The colour is green-grey.

Stay with it.

I amsterdam includes both stamppot and snert among the city’s essential winter foods. They make sense because they are practical, warming and substantial. This is food designed for weather that has become personal.

If you visit in July, you do not need to hunt down a giant plate of mashed potato because the internet told you to complete a list.

Food has seasons.

A good trip respects them.

12. Drop & Hagelslag: Two Foods That Explain More Than They Should

Some foods are worth trying because they are delicious.

Others are worth trying because they explain the people around you.

Drop is Dutch liquorice, and the relationship between Dutch people and liquorice is difficult to explain to outsiders without sounding as though the nation collectively lost a bet.

I amsterdam describes liquorice eating as something of a national pastime. You will find sweet drop, salty drop and intensely salty versions that cause international visitors to stare into the middle distance and reconsider trust.

Try it.

You may love it.

You may immediately understand why your Dutch friend was smiling before handing it to you.

Then there is hagelslag.

Chocolate sprinkles. On buttered bread. For breakfast or lunch.

Adults eat it.

Children eat it.

Nobody holds a meeting about whether this is appropriate.

The same Dutch eating guide that explains the borrel also lists hagelslag as a normal bread topping. That is the important part. This is not a novelty invented for tourists. It is just food.

Drop and hagelslag tell you more about Dutch everyday life than another carefully staged restaurant recommendation ever could.

But If You Only Eat Dutch Food, You’re Missing Amsterdam

This is the part I care about most.

If you leave Amsterdam having eaten stroopwafels, pancakes, fries and bitterballen, you have tasted some great Dutch classics.

But Dutch food and Amsterdam food are not quite the same thing.

Amsterdam’s food tells the story of people arriving, communities forming, recipes adapting and the Netherlands’ complicated relationship with the countries it colonised.

That history should not be flattened into “international food”.

Indonesian Food and the History Behind Rijsttafel

Indonesian food has a particularly important place in Dutch and Amsterdam food culture, but the context matters.

Rijsttafel means “rice table” and usually involves rice accompanied by many smaller dishes: vegetables, meat, eggs, sambals, sauces and other preparations spread across the table.

It is generous, colourful and very easy to enjoy.

The history is more difficult.

Rijsttafel developed in the colonial Dutch East Indies rather than being one traditional Indonesian meal transported unchanged to Europe. Wereldmuseum documents how Dutch rule in Indonesia was organised around extracting wealth and resources, and its Amsterdam exhibition on Our Colonial Inheritance explores how colonialism continues to shape Dutch society today.

After Indonesian independence, migration to the Netherlands brought Indo-Dutch and Indonesian family food traditions with it. Restaurants, home kitchens and later generations of cooks kept changing the way these dishes were prepared and understood here.

So absolutely eat Indonesian food in Amsterdam.

Enjoy it.

Ask what you are ordering.

And keep the history beside the meal rather than pretending the dishes appeared here by accident.

Surinamese Food Is Part of How Amsterdam Eats

Surinamese food is just as important to understand, and many international visitors arrive knowing almost nothing about it.

Suriname was a Dutch colony until independence in 1975. Its cuisine reflects Indigenous, African, South Asian, Javanese, Chinese, Jewish and European histories, including the forced movement of enslaved people and indentured labour under colonial rule.

That history produced an extraordinarily varied food culture, and Amsterdam is one of the best places outside Suriname to experience it.

Start with roti: flatbread served with spiced potatoes, long beans and fillings such as chicken, tempeh, tofu or vegetables. Then look for bara, a savoury fried snack with South Asian roots, and Surinamese broodjes filled with things like bakkeljauw, pom or curry.

I amsterdam’s guide to the city’s roti shops is especially useful because it explains how African, South Asian, Javanese, Chinese and other influences meet within Surinamese cooking rather than presenting the cuisine as one single tradition.

Turkish and Moroccan communities have also shaped the way Amsterdam eats, alongside countless newer arrivals and chefs who are still changing the city’s food scene.

This is why a food guide to Amsterdam cannot end at the national border.

Where to Eat: Match the Food to the Setting

You do not need a restaurant reservation for every Dutch food.

For stroopwafels, poffertjes, herring, kibbeling and other quick bites, markets make sense.

For bitterballen, cheese and ossenworst, find a brown café, tasting room or neighbourhood bar and turn it into a borrel.

For kroket, go to Van Dobben for the traditional sit-down Amsterdam version or try a snack bar or automat when speed is part of the experience.

For winter food, look for Dutch restaurants serving seasonal dishes rather than forcing stamppot into a warm-weather itinerary.

Albert Cuyp Market in De Pijp is the best-known food market, but Dappermarkt, Ten Katemarkt and Noordermarkt each offer a different feel. Our guide to the best food markets in Amsterdam explains when to go and what each one does well.

Do not attempt all of them before dinner.

This is food research.

It still has consequences.

Jordaan or De Pijp? Two Food Routes, Two Sides of Amsterdam

If you want to explore this through a route rather than building your own list, I would keep the choice simple.

Choose the Self-Guided Jordaan Food Tour or Private Guided Jordaan Food Tour if you want traditional Dutch flavours, old Amsterdam, brown cafés, cheese, fish, sausage and appeltaart.

Choose the Self-Guided De Pijp Food Tour or Private Guided De Pijp Food Tour if you want markets, migration and a more multicultural picture of how Amsterdam eats now.

The Jordaan shows you one history.

De Pijp opens another.

Neither is the “correct” Amsterdam.

What Dutch Food Tells You About Amsterdam

When I first arrived, bread and cheese for lunch felt almost comically basic.

Now I understand it differently.

Traditional Dutch food is often practical because Dutch life has historically valued practicality. It is filling. Seasonal. Efficient. Frequently fried. Occasionally suspiciously brown.

It is also tied to habits that make much more sense once you live here: the simple lunch, the early dinner, the borrel, the market snack, the slice of apple pie with coffee.

And then Amsterdam takes that foundation and complicates it in the best possible way.

Indonesian rijsttafel. Surinamese roti and bara. Turkish bakeries. Moroccan flavours. Modern chefs changing old ingredients. Markets where five different food histories can be operating within twenty metres of each other.

That is Amsterdam.

So yes: eat the stroopwafel.

Order the bitterballen.

Try herring Amsterdam-style.

Have a broodje kroket at Van Dobben.

Put hagelslag on bread at least once and decide what you think about Dutch adulthood.

But do not stop there.

If you leave Amsterdam having eaten stroopwafels, pancakes, fries and bitterballen, you have tasted some great Dutch classics.

If you only eat Dutch food, you are missing Amsterdam.