Must-try typical Dutch food in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is popular for many things: architecture, culture, tolerance and not to forget the great diversity of food you can try. Amsterdam is home to many restaurants, markets and food hallen where you can spoil your taste buds. So whenever you visit this city, you should also try some of places and food from our list. Let’s go to the list.

Raw Herring aka “Hollandse Nieuwe”

Typical Dutch food herring, Haring. Hollandse nieuwe.
Herring

Every market there is a fish stall, and you guess right: they sell fish. They sell all kinds of fresh fish. Haring or “Hollandse Nieuwe”, is a raw fish served with onions and pickles. These are optional but do go great with it if you do not dislike it. Another spot to get haring is at the supermarket like Albert Heijn.

Cheese

Gouda Cheese and green cheese, red cheese from Amsterdam. Typical dutch food

The Netherlands is home to some of the famous cheese. Gouda, old Amsterdam, and young cheese. You can eat them on crackers, bread or just as it is. When you put it on some bread I do recommend some butter and several good layers of cheese. Add some lettuce, tomato if you’d like. You can buy cheese in supermarkets. Or you can go to Zaanse Schans and see even how it’s produced.

Fries (Vlemisch Fries)

Patat, fries

Flemisch Fries, are just thick potato fries. There are several establishments famous in the Netherlands. Vleminckx and Manneken Pis in Amsterdam offers the more famous fries. My fries at Manneken Pis were full of oil and weak. Maybe it was a one time off since it was busy. But it was not really that great. The fries at Vleminckx were a lot better in my opinion. When buying the fries, keep in mind you still need to buy the sauce. The sauce is very important! you can keep it simple by taking mayonnaise or ketchup or go wild and choose one of their more exotic sauces. On the Map below I marked the fries with purple.

Kapsalon

Kapsalon

Although this dish originally was “discovered” in Rotterdam, Amsterdam also has some great places to eat this. Kapsalon is fries with melted cheese, some meat (chicken or veal). You can get Kapsalon in most shoarma places. The sauce that goes on top is shoarma/garlic sauce and some spicy red sauce. This calorie-bomb was a regular request from a “Kapsalon”, a hairdresser salon. The request would be to have Fries in an aluminum square, and then on top add cheese. On top of the cheese add the meat, and then again a layer of cheese. This then is put in a hot oven so the cheese would melt all the way through. After the over, the lettuce, tomato, and some sauce (garlic and spicy red sauce)

Poffertjes

poffertjes, small mini pancakes

Poffertjes are similar to small pancakes. You can take them with or without butter. Butter brings a more creamy full taste to the pancake. You also receive some powdered sugar with it. When you find a stall on the street of Amsterdam with a sign of Poffertjes or Oliebollen that’s where you will have the opportunity to buy this food.

Bitterballen

Bitterballen Amsterdam

This tasty snack has a misleading name. From the name, you would be misled by the part bitter. I can tell you this much, it’s not bitter. The butterballs are deep-fried. The outside is crunchy, and the inside can be very hot burning your tongue easily. The inside is made from a mixture of potatoes and meat. The meat can be pork, chicken, beef. Bitterballs are a great snack dish for beer.

Apple Pie

Apple Pie

I had a great experience having apple pie from Amsterdam. This is easy to buy in supermarkets, bakeries, restaurants or coffee places. Apple pie is great to have with coffee or just as a dessert. I don’t have much else to say except don’t pass the opportunity on apple pie when in Amsterdam.

Oliebollen (Fritters)

Oliebollen

This seasonal treat is around Christmas and New Years sold almost everywhere. Oliebollen like poffertjes are great with powdered sugar. Some of the Oliebollen are filled with raisins. It’s a deep-fried dough mixture forming some round-shaped bread/donut. Although it is not bread or donut, the texture is pretty similar. So are you in Amsterdam around New Years or Christmas?

FEBO, food from the wall all over in Amsterdam

Febo typical dutch food
Photo credit: Salim Virji on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-SA

FEBO a franchise snackbar is known for its vending machines. You can get food from outside the wall as it were. Just walk to the wall, insert coin (pay exactly the amount, you get no change), and pull the lever of the food you want. Be it a burger, kroket (long-shaped bitterball) or frikandel, you can get this from outside the wall.

HEMA Sausage (worst)

hema worst
Photo credit: amsfrank on VisualHunt / CC BY-SA

This typical food, Hema Worst (sausage) is often eaten with mustard. Hema had stores just serving Hema Worst as their main product.

Green Pea Soup aka “Snert”

green pea soup, erwtensoep typical dutch food

This seasonal soup is typical dutch food for in the winter. Since we did visit during wintertime, we had to try it. Even though it looked green and thick, it was delicious. The soup contained sausage (rookworst) similar to Hema Worst.

Cannibale Royale

Cannibale Royale is a restaurant, and by now there are 5 of them in Amsterdam. They grill on charcoal ribs, steaks and other meaty delights. It’s a very intense experience. This is for sure a must-try place for food in Amsterdam. I do recommend making a reservation with them because even on a random Tuesday night they might be fully booked until 9pm. Their Burger is awesome, their ribs just melt clean off from the bone, and their steaks are unmatched. Are you in Amsterdam? Visit this restaurant in Handboogstraat.

Map to find Typical Dutch food in Amsterdam

Some of the food listed above are found in supermarkets or restaurants. This map of Amsterdam here will help you find your way to get to the food.

If you are looking for Chinese Restaurants in Amsterdam, I wrote about the best ones I tried.

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