The Best Places in the Netherlands

The chef at this organic restaurant in Arnhem follows the micro-seasons so closely he uses every part of his own livestock. French and Asian influences run quietly through the menu, the kind of place where a leek arrives surrounded by cream made from the same leek. Natural wines and specialty beers round out a list that takes roughly as much care as the food does.

Corner spot across from the RAI, Toet is a lively Mediterranean restaurant with a vintage room that feels looser than it looks. Seats at the open kitchen go fast, which tells you something about the crowd. The cooking leans into bold, spicy Mediterranean flavors, à la carte, seven nights a week, which in this neighborhood of conference dinners and early exits is a minor act of defiance.

An old sawmill on the Oude Rijn gives this modern restaurant a setting that does a lot of the work before the food arrives, and the terrace over the water does even more. The kitchen keeps pace, turning out carefully composed plates that lean on classic French technique without being precious about it. The cooking is restrained in the way that takes more effort than showiness does, and the room feels like a genuine find rather than a converted anything.

The name means "new," which tells you exactly where Alexander Wong is taking Chinese cooking in this modern restaurant on the ground floor of the Supernova Hotel. Traditional recipes arrive reconfigured, with cured fish, puffed rice, and unexpected herb oils doing the reframing. The menu runs long, which suits a chef who seems happiest when the combination shouldn't work but does.

The Peking duck arrives with hoisin sauce and a house-made sambal, crispy-skinned and served the way it deserves to be. Zheng is a restaurant built around the four main branches of Chinese cuisine, sent out in small dishes, often three to a course. The dining room is dressed in traditional tableware and objets d'art, which are also for sale, in case you find yourself attached to the bowl.

A converted parsonage on the island of Texel, surrounded by farmland and vegetable gardens, Bij Jef is a small boutique hotel with a genuinely luxurious feel. Open-plan suites are bright and minimalist, with Dutch-made beds and wool bedding sourced nearby. Some look out over the village rooftops, others face the fields. Breakfast arrives in courses, with champagne, and the beach is a short bike ride away.

Two cocktail bars for the price of one grand hotel: a wood-panelled, nautical-themed room tucked below the lobby, and a sleeker, louder sibling upstairs with a sound system that makes the chandeliers nervous. Both open onto terraces over the Amstel River, which is the kind of view that makes a second round feel responsible. The bartenders take the classics seriously, and the whole operation carries the unhurried ease of somewhere that has been doing this for a very long time.

A pizza place in Bussum where Neapolitan dough technique meets Vietnamese flavors, and somehow it makes complete sense. Tom Han trained at nNea before opening this cozy spot with his brother, and the long-leavened crusts are light enough to make the fusion toppings feel like the point, not a distraction. The compact menu balances classics with signature pies that lean on umami and Southeast Asian references. Named to 50 Top Pizza Europe's Excellent Pizzerias list.

A pizza shop in De Pijp with a sharp Calabrian focus, where the menu doesn't wander into pasta or small plates because the pizza doesn't need the help. The dough comes in a spelt option that lands lighter than you'd expect. The room feels deliberately spare, the kind of place that has decided exactly what it is and stopped there. Listed among 50 Top Pizza Europe's Excellent Pizzerias.

A Neapolitan pizza restaurant in Eindhoven's Strijp-S district, with a room big and bright enough that you stop wondering if you made a reservation at a converted factory (you did). The dough is worked long and properly, with the kind of pronounced crust that signals someone back there actually cares. The Margherita is the honest test, and it passes. A solid Italian wine list and some fried things round out a menu that knows what it is.

The oven greets you at the door, which tells you everything about priorities. This Amsterdam pizzeria runs on contemporary Neapolitan pies, with a dough the team has spent years quietly obsessing over. The menu pulls double duty: classic Campanian dishes like genovese and parmigiana appear as standalone plates and as pizza toppings. Simple, unfussy, and genuinely bilingual in its appeal to both Italian expats and everyone else on Amstelveenseweg.

Neapolitan pizza cooked in a traditional wood-fired oven is the anchor at this Italian pizzeria and wine bar in the center of Weert. The menu moves between well-executed classics and more seasonal, contemporary combinations, with appetizers, desserts, and a wine list built to turn a slice into a proper sit-down. Named among Europe's Excellent Pizzerias by 50 Top Pizza, it has the feel of a place that already knows what it wants to be.

A Neapolitan pizza spot in Utrecht where the dough is the whole point, and the kitchen takes leavening seriously enough that you notice. The menu leans into Campanian classics, with a daily pizza that follows what's in season. The stuffed panuozzo, baked in the oven, gives you a reason to deviate from the round. Ranked in 50 Top Pizza Europe, it's a small, convivial room that somehow feels less like a trend and more like someone's actual conviction.

Bar Mokum is a De Pijp cocktail bar you reach by climbing a steep staircase that tends to jam up with out-of-towners hunting for a vibe, so reserving a seat is the polite move. The drinks are twists on classics with Dutch slang for names, and the back room is dressed up as the Red Light District, which is the closest you'll get to Amsterdam's most photographed street without the photographing. Food stops at olives and nuts.

Bar Strangelove is the bar inside Lab111, a cinema in a former laboratory, so the whole thing already feels like a plot point. The menu commits fully to film puns, with pizzas named after indie movies and cocktails that include a Halle Blueberry and a Sacred Kir. You can come for a screening or skip it, and the pizza beats cinema nachos either way. Expect relaxed prices and people who say "auteur" without irony.

A brown café in a centuries-old distillery building on one of Amsterdam's prettiest canals, where the dark wood and stained glass feel less like décor and less like history and more like they just never left. In summer, tables spill out to the water; in winter, everyone piles in and the cozy interior earns that word. Beer is affordable for this part of town, and the kitchen runs a short menu of Dutch bar snacks and classics.

A butter tower behind the marble bar sets the tone at this apéro-style café and seafood spot on the Vijzelgracht. The menu leans southern European but the fish is properly Dutch, shifting with the seasons and leaning heavily on what the North Sea actually offers. On sunny afternoons the terrace fills fast, and inside, little glasses of Campari-based cocktails catch the light in a way that makes staying for one more very easy to justify.

A vegetarian tasting menu spot on a quiet intersection just beyond Amsterdam's tourist scrum, Chez Nina is the project of Swedish chef Nina Olsson, who blends Mediterranean and East Asian ideas into seasonal plates. The natural wine list skews toward female winemakers, and the cocktails run to things like chlorophyll matcha horchata, which is either a reason to come or a reason to pause, depending on who you are.

The kapsalon, a dish with a genuinely tangled origin story, is the whole reason to be here: fries buried under döner meat, a slice of Dutch cheese, and a ladle of garlic sauce and sambal. Sinbad is a casual counter spot in Oosterpark, and the veal döner version is the classic order, though the chicken has its own following. Load up from the self-service sauces, then watch a broad cross section of Amsterdam cycle through the door while you eat.

The mustard spoon is communal, and nobody seems to mind. Van Dobben is an old-school Amsterdam lunchroom that has been slinging croquettes since before your grandparents were dating, and in a city where every café claims a croquette, this one sets the baseline. Soft white rolls, fried things, and a broodje tartaar topped with raw beef, boiled egg, and a generous heap of mayo for the committed. Retro and unpretentious in equal measure.

The staff will tell you, unprompted, that this is not a pizzeria but a "pizza-driven wine bar," which is the kind of thing that could go badly but somehow doesn't. Sourdough miso margarita pies share the menu with clams and lamb sausage, and low-intervention wines sit alongside basil-scented cocktails. Amsterdam-Noord, and worth booking ahead, which should tell you everything about how the room fills up.

An old-school Amsterdam bakery that mills its own flour from Dutch-grown wheat inside the city, which is either charming or slightly mad depending on your priorities. Nearly everything on the counter follows from that mill, including oliebollen in winter with a crust that earns their reputation, and speculaas ice cream sandwiches rolled in hazelnuts and rosemary when summer arrives. A seasonal place, so check before you go.

Jazz Café Alto is a small, dark jazz bar on a Leidseplein side street, a stretch otherwise given over to steakhouses and pubs for people who just left a coffee shop. There's live music every night, and the room fills up fast, so arrive early. They don't serve food, so eat first. The stools at the bar are the smart seat, since the drink line gets long once the band starts.

A market stall at the Ganzenhoef Bijlmer Saturday market in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, Lila Bara turns out Hindustani Surinamese baras, savory fried breads filled with spiced chicken and topped with mango achar. The team shapes mung bean dough by hand, fries it to order, and the line that forms around the handwritten wooden menu does most of the advertising. Grab a coconut dawet from a neighboring stall before you get there; you'll want it.

This is a tea house on Rozengracht where the cocktails contain no alcohol and nobody seems bothered. You sit at low tables over tea-infused drinks, CBD lattes, and herby tonics, while upstairs the quieter rooms host traditional ceremonies, some guided by staff happy to get into tea mythology. The shelves of loose leaf and teaware exist for anyone ready to retire the grocery-store tea bag.

Paindemie is a two-level burger and sando spot on Kinkerstraat, and you walk in through what passes for a Japanese subway station, neon signs and plastic chairs included. Upstairs, a marble-topped speakeasy pours sake, beer, and classic cocktails under warm lamps, and the menu pairs a Big Mac riff on pain de mie with an escargot toastie served on actual plates. Reserve upstairs, or take your drink down to the egg salad sando.

One plate a day, take it or leave it. Paon Bali is a no-fuss Indonesian set-meal spot where that plate arrives as a mound of rice ringed by eight to ten small portions of meat, vegetables, and sambals. Bali's Hindu roots mean pork shows up where much of Indonesian cooking won't go, and the roast pork and pork in sweet soy are the reasons regulars already know what they're ordering before they walk in.

This is the Brouwerij 't IJ taproom, a round pavilion planted in the middle of Vondelpark, which makes it the rare beer stop where the toughest decision is deck chair or jeu de boules. Expect the usual 't IJ pours, plus sandwiches, pastries, and smoothies for the strollers and dog owners drifting through. A band sometimes plays nearby, and the Dutch weather supplies its own drama.

Samuka Kenneh's fine dining restaurant on Nassaukade is the Netherlands' first to put West African cooking at the center of a set-menu format, which already makes it something. The kitchen reworks Ghanaian and Liberian traditions into tasting courses, threading Atlantic fish like mackerel and sardines through dishes that remind you West Africa is closer than Amsterdam's usual French and Italian influences suggest.

Fruit stacked in the window, cheerful tins of olives, trays of vibrantly colored food: this sunny corner cafe serves a rotating, mostly vegetarian spread rooted in Algerian home cooking and whatever the season offers locally. You pick a few dishes, order some mint tea, and the staff warms everything up for you. It's the kind of lunch spot that makes a to-do list feel very negotiable.

The sandwiches won and the records lost, which is how Amsterdam ended up with one of its great lunch counters. Tjin's is a Surinamese sandwich and roti shop that has been around forever, serving char siu pork buns, bacalao, tempeh, roti rolls, and pom alongside house hot sauce and pickled cucumbers. Wash it down with a Fernandes soda and you're doing it right. The menu is short on pretension and long on the kind of flavors that make a detour feel obvious in hindsight.

The rijsttafel, a colonial-era Dutch invention despite its Indonesian soul, arrives here as eighteen small dishes covering every corner of the table. This warm, bustling Indonesian restaurant on Utrechtsestraat is the kind of place that makes a grey Amsterdam afternoon feel manageable. The vegetarian version, built around tempeh, eggplant, and sharp pickles, tends to outshine the standard spread.

Four tables, a staircase steep enough to make you reconsider, and a strong claim to being Europe's smallest pancake restaurant. This is a Dutch pancake spot, which means the pancakes land somewhere between a crepe and the fluffy American kind, piled with toppings both sweet and savory. The building has been around forever, the decor leans old Dutch, and the owners often cook your meal themselves. Bring patience and a low ceiling tolerance.

Every surface in this cocktail bar reflects back the drink in your hand, which is either poetic or a little overwhelming depending on how many Bols liqueurs you correctly identified in the tasting hall you walked through to get here. The House of Bols runs a tour before letting you in, which means entry comes with a cocktail and a genever shot built into the price. The mirror room is the payoff, and the liqueur selection behind the bar is genuinely hard to argue with.

Tin beer signs and chalk boards cover the varnished plywood walls, and the bare wooden floor suggests nobody ever worried much about the mess. This is a traditional Belgian beer bar in Amsterdam, with a list of well over a hundred bottles and a handful of draught taps weighted heavily toward Belgian and Dutch brews. Late on weekends, the name, which means "crazy," stops being ironic and starts being a warning.

You ring a doorbell on Reguliersdwarsstraat and hope someone answers, which is already a better start to a cocktail bar than most. Inside, Door 74 does the Prohibition speakeasy thing with dark wood and antique barware that stops just short of costume party. The menu leans into bold, complex flavors without abandoning approachable drinks, and the bartenders will steer you right if you let them.

A cocktail bar named for a South American and New Zealand fruit that shows up in some of the drinks, Feijoa sits at the busy corner of Vijzelstraat and Reguliersdwarsstraat. The short menu skews sweet, fruity, and creamy, but the bartenders are happiest going off-script, especially on classics. The tell: neighboring bar staff fill the stools before and after their own shifts, which is as reliable a signal as any that the team here knows how to pour.

A burger joint on Albert Cuypstraat that is also, for those who know to ask, a cocktail bar tucked behind it. The setup borrows a page from New York's speakeasy playbook: order a burger if you like, but the actual point is a well-made drink somewhere that most passersby will never find. The kind of place that rewards the mildly curious and inconveniences nobody else.

Two glowing Corian bars shaped like river stones face each other across the lobby divide of the Grand Sofitel, which sets the tone for what this cocktail bar is going for. Champagne flights, oysters from a raw bar, and well-made cocktails draw a dressed-up crowd. It skews designer and upmarket, so dress accordingly and order accordingly. If you want a brown bar, Amsterdam has better ones a short walk away.

A working craft brewery tucked inside a genuine Amsterdam windmill on the IJ waterfront, with an emu on the logo because in Dutch "IJ" sounds like "egg," and Dutch brewers commit to the bit. The taproom is small and a little scruffy, dusty bottles lining the tiled walls in a way that feels honestly lived-in rather than designed to look that way. Come for the strong, hop-forward house ales poured straight from the source.

Cactus plants crowd the bar top and provocative art covers the walls, which is about right for a cocktail lounge named after Charles Bukowski. Henry's is the sleeker half of a two-bar operation on Oosterpark, with the adjoining Bar Bukowski leaning more literary dive. At Henry's, the mood runs loud and loose, the crowd skews hip, and the drinks are the point. A good spot to start the night before you forget what you ordered.

The barrels lining the walls here aren't decorative, they hold the jenever and liqueurs you're about to drink. An old-school Dutch proeflokaal, or tasting house, this one has been around forever on a quiet lane just off the Dam, its dark wood interior feeling less like preservation and more like nothing ever needed changing. Order a traditional pour and stand at the bar the way generations of Amsterdammers have, without overthinking it.

A ceiling of hanging crystal glass catches the light on the tenth floor of the WestCord Fashion Hotel, which is either dramatic or a lot, depending on your mood. This cocktail bar sits near the A10 ring road, a tram ride from the center, though the more honest draw is that Schiphol is ten minutes away. Black club-style decor and panoramic city views give it a sleek, transit-lounge-with-ambition feel.

The building used to be something official and grand, and the hotel inside it leans into that with a cocktail bar done in stark black and glass that shouldn't work but does. A row of plush booth seats faces a communal high table that looks like a fish tank scaled for people, drawing an even split of fashion industry types and people on expenses. Tunes Bar is the kind of place where the architecture does half the work, and nobody minds.

Copper chain curtains hang between the bar and the canal that runs directly beneath it, which tells you a lot about Hotel De l'Europe's priorities. Freddie's is a classic hotel bar: panelled walls, leather banquettes, and a warm pink-orange glow overhead. It's named for Alfred Heineken, who apparently used to hold court here among friends. Anyone can walk in, and people do, but the room very much dresses up.

The building used to be a jenever distillery's tasting house, and the shift from spirits to beer hasn't made it any less serious about drinking. This old-school Amsterdam beer bar carries over 200 bottles and seventeen taps, leaning heavily on Belgian and Dutch brews, with Trappist beers as a particular obsession. It is unpretentious in the way that places are when they have nothing to prove, which around here is a compliment.

A brown café so undesigned it loops back around to charming, De Pilsner sits on a narrow Begijnensteeg alley and operates on a simple principle: beer on draught, beer in bottles, or genever, and ideally all three in sequence. Regulars call it De Engelse Reet, which translates politely as The English Backside, a nickname the place wears with no apparent shame. There's no DJ, no aesthetic, no concept. Just the low hum of people actually talking to each other.

A firehose is bolted across the doorway for reasons nobody seems compelled to explain, which sets the tone nicely for this low-lit, no-fuss Belgian beer bar on Overtoom. Bare floorboards, utilitarian furniture, and red-shaded candles flickering on every table. The range of specialist Belgian and foreign drafts and bottles is the whole point, and regulars tend to treat the menu less like a list and more like a project.

A one-room tasting house tucked near Central Station, De Ooievaar pours genevers and liqueurs from the distillery that shares its name and has been around forever. The shelves do the decorating, the room fits maybe a dozen people comfortably, and the whole point is standing at the bar with a small glass of something Dutch and slightly medicinal-tasting. It sits on a corner, conveniently on the walking route that politely gets described as "toward the Red Light district."

Henrique Sá Pessoa, the Portuguese chef with a following back home, runs set menus here that pull Portuguese home cooking toward something more cosmopolitan, with the occasional East Asian lean. The portions stay generous even when the plating gets precise. Bespoke cocktails and a cool bar make the lunch crowd feel like they've found something. Set-menu restaurant, the kind where you dress up just enough to feel good about it.

A cocktail bar on Mauritskade where the menu is organized around themes like perfume and medicinal bitters, which sounds fussy until you're actually holding the drink. The room leans into a Golden Age mood, with jazz setting the pace and no apparent interest in hurrying you along. Difford's Guide has noted it. Come with the kind of curiosity that makes you read a menu twice before ordering.

The basement of Hotel New York turns out to be one of the more atmospheric dining rooms in Rotterdam, fitted out like a jazz-age Manhattan club and anchored by an eleven-meter bar that earns its keep. It's a modern cuisine restaurant with French leanings, but the kitchen moves comfortably between beurre blanc and yuzu without making a fuss about it. The oyster bar pulls in its own crowd. Dress like you mean it.

A canal-side bar on Kloveniersburgwal with what is claimed to be the largest genever selection in the Netherlands, Rosalia's Menagerie sits in De Wallen inside a former inn and takes Dutch spirits seriously enough to feel like a minor institution. The bartenders use genever as a proper cocktail spirit rather than a novelty, which shifts the whole experience. Pull up a stool, order something you've never heard of, and watch the canal do nothing in particular.