By Vicky Hampton Before we get into my recommendations for the best steakhouses and burger bars in Amsterdam, a note about buying meat in the Netherlands. I grew up in the UK, where it was normal to roast a big cut of meat on a Sunday – a rib of beef, a leg of lamb or a whole chicken, for example. Mr Foodie grew up in the US, where it was equally normal to buy a whole packer or a Boston butt and throw it on the smoker for several hours. Moving to the Netherlands then, it’s immediately apparent that this isn’t much done here. The supermarkets sell individually portioned chunks of meat in plasti ..read more

By Vicky Hampton Portugal is one of those places that keeps calling me back… I’d visited Lisbon and the Algarve several years ago, and then I finally made it to Porto last autumn. Regular followers of this site will know the love affair I conducted with Madeira over six weeks at the start of 2022, and I’m already plotting my return to Ericeira. But in the meantime, I’ve been craving Portuguese food and trying to track down every Portuguese restaurant in Amsterdam. It turns out there are not that many – and even fewer that are any good. (I feel this is a gap in the market.) So this roundup, unl ..read more

By Vicky Hampton While the ceviche revolution hit London a few years ago, it’s taken a little longer to make its way to Amsterdam. And even now, this list is a short one. But for those of us who love our pisco sours, leche de tigre, aji amarillo chillies and choclo corn, there are now a handful of Peruvian restaurants in Amsterdam with our names on them. Buen provecho! 5 Peruvian Restaurants in Amsterdam Moche The new kid on the (eastern) block, Moche has been a highly welcome 2023 addition to the Oostpoort/Watergraafsmeer neighbourhood. The evening I visited, service was relaxed yet attentive ..read more

By Vicky Hampton Pancakes, crepes, pannenkoeken… whatever you call them, and whatever size and shape they come in, they make an excellent, filling, low-budget meal. Holland and pancakes go together like Sonny and Cher, but it’s actually extremely rare that I eat pancakes in Amsterdam. Except, that is, when I have a hangover. Then these carb-rich beauties are exactly what’s needed to stave off whatever ails you. And the Dutch do them particularly well: you mustn’t visit Amsterdam without trying one of the pancake houses the city has to offer. Best Dutch pancakes in Amsterdam Pannenkoekenhuis Up ..read more

By Vicky Hampton Amsterdam is known for its Surinamese cuisine… apparently. I don’t know about you, but in my experience Surinamese and Indonesian food often get lumped in together, and even when you think you’ve ordered the former it turns out to be the latter. It’s not helped by the fact that Surinamese cuisine has been influenced and infiltrated by the cuisines of China, Indonesia, Africa, South America (and probably more besides!) so it’s hard to know what we even mean when we talk about Surinamese food. Plus, while there are plenty of higher-end sit-down Indonesian restaurants, most Surin ..read more

By Vicky Hampton What makes an eetcafé? Is it the simple decor? The range of beers on tap? Or the ubiquitous presence of chicken satay on the menu? At Eetcafé Wijmpje Beukers, just off Van der Helstplein in de Pijp, you’ll get the beers on tap and the simple décor (albeit the café was all dressed up for Christmas the night we were there). But you won’t get anything so pedestrian as chicken satay. You also won’t find any of that fixed, multi-course, chef’s menu malarky that seems to be in favour by 90% of Amsterdam restaurants these days. Instead, you’ll find an elegant, creative, well-thought ..read more

By Vicky Hampton As all Amsterdammers know but many visitors don’t, Indonesian food is widely eaten in the Netherlands due to the two countries’ colonial history (too complicated to go into here, but Google it). So when in the Dutch capital, checking out one of the Indonesian restaurants in Amsterdam is a must. Don’t leave the city without trying a rijsttafel (literally: “rice table”): dozens of small, shareable dishes ranging from mild to spicy, in all colours of the rainbow, served with rice. Although something of a Dutch invention (locals in Indonesia aren’t eating rijsttafels), it’s a grea ..read more

By Vicky Hampton Much like my recent piece about tacos in Amsterdam, this article wouldn’t have been possible to write even just a couple of years ago. But fried chicken is having a moment in Amsterdam right now, and who am I to count calories when there’s serious research to be done? Whether you like your fried chicken hot or sweet, with biscuits or booze, there’s a kip joint in Amsterdam that’s got your name on it. ‘Cause these places are all finger lickin’. Southern fried chicken: Biscuit Baby I had to start with Biscuit Baby, because theirs was hands-down the best fried chicken I’ve ever t ..read more

By Vicky Hampton My parents took me on my first skiing holiday to the Alps when I was just five years old. Looking back on it, I can see how ludicrously privileged this was, but at the time it just felt normal – not to mention cold and exhausting. For two weeks every winter, my tiny child-body in its tiny-but-still-heavy-and-unwieldy ski boots would lug a pair of 80s planks around while someone yelled at me in heavily accented English to “Benze kneez!!!” While it was a couple of years before the skiing part actually became enjoyable, I was down for the food from day one: steaming dishes of fon ..read more

By Vicky Hampton Always on some kind of self-help kick, I’m currently doing a thing called “The Artist’s Way”. For those of you who’ve never heard of it, it’s a 12-week course that’s designed to help you discover (or recover) your sense of creativity. It involves lots of exercises and activities, possibly my favourite of which is the weekly “artist date”. For an hour or two, you get to do something fun, by yourself, that’s just for you. One week, I decided to go to the new Russian supermarket in de Pijp, Vkusvill – mostly just to browse the interesting ingredients and indulge in a bit of armch ..read more