Amsterdam Food Diary

I’ve had a few short layovers and weekend stopovers in Amsterdam, but this is the first time I’ve come to Amsterdam without the intention of hitting all of the touristy stops. For me, this weekend in Amsterdam was about celebrating the end of my Eurovelo 15 cycling tour by relaxing and more importantly, EATING.

While loads of young tourists consider Amsterdam the best place for partying, I think it’s an incredible place for an amazing cafe culture. There are so so so many little gems here, and I’m giving you guys my recommendations, as well as the other places I’ve looked into/been recommended but didn’t have time to visit.

If you’re looking for a more concrete guide to a short Amsterdam trip, look here!

My Recommendations (Food Diary)

Day 1

We didn’t actually stay in the centre of Amsterdam (everything was over €100 a night!), so we started the day with a metro ride to Amsterdam Centraal. Just a 5 minute walk away from the train station is Omelegg, an omelette lover’s dream.

To be honest, I’m not a huge egg person, but we wanted a hearty breakfast for a full day of exploring, and this was perfect! I am SO glad we came here; the omelettes are incredible. We really enjoyed both our omelettes, though I think Phil’s was one of the best (it’s the Viking omelette with smoked salmon, creme fraiche, and dill- holy wow). We had to wait a bit outside (about 20 minutes) as this is a small but popular restaurant! It was worth the wait.

Phil needed a coffee after a little while, so we headed to Winkel 43, a cute cosy cafe famous for its Dutch apple pie, which definitely lived up to the hype. Soooo yummy and the buttery crust was heavenly. Get it with creme!

We actually skipped out on lunch because we were so busy exploring canals and wandering around. We went to Body Worlds where we saw some dissected humans – very interesting and got so lost in time. We napped in the sun in Vondelpark and were enjoying the day so much that it was maybe 4pm before we even realised!

We didn’t really want to eat a lunch and then a late dinner, so we had some ice cream! I had heard AMAZING things about Van Der Linde’s ice cream, so we checked it out. It’s cheap (so you can buy big cones!) and it only comes in one flavour. To be honest, I was a little disappointed. If you love whipped cream, this is for you. I think it was literally frozen cream, because when it thawed, it was essentially just whipped cream. I love whipped cream so I still enjoyed it (for sure!), but it isn’t really ice cream to me and it didn’t live up to my expectations.

We went to the bloemenmarkt just to see what it was like (pretty and good if you need to buy tulip bulbs, but don’t go out of your way to see it), and then went to find some Indonesian food.

For dinner, we had a little FEAST at Puri Mas. We had their set meal which came with loads of dishes (maybe about 7?) and rice. Every single dish was delicious and the staff was really attentive and lovely.

We took the metro back to our place and spent the night watching some good ole Netflix.

Day 2

We woke up early and headed back into the city.

The omelettes at Omelegg were so good we had to return. We went to the other location in De Pijp and booked tickets to the Van Gogh Museum during breakfast.

I’d recommend booking further in advance- we were lucky that there were still tickets available the day of!

While waiting for our time slot into the museum, we had coffee at a little cafe in the Rijksmuseum garden. We sat by the fountain and people watched and it was really lovely.

I love the work of Van Gogh, and seeing his paintings (my favourite is Bridge in the Rain) and letters was unreal, but as a short person, it was really hard to see some of the work because the museum was SO DANG CROWDED. If you’re prepared for the crowds (unsure why I didn’t expect so many people), it’ll be a great experience.

For lunch, we headed to the Foodhallen, which is a big hall with loads of different food stalls. We tried bitterballen from De Ballen Bar (wasn’t really my cup of tea because I don’t really like deep fried food but the taste was pretty dang good and people love them), dim sum from Dim Sum Thing (yum), and I had some sushi that was also really good!

We actually headed back to our hotel outside of the city after this, as we were TIRED! We haven’t had much time to relax after finishing our cycling trip and just wanted an afternoon to lay in bed and get some work done.

We had a lowkey dinner outside of the city, so this is where my food and travel diary end! Tomorrow I fly home and get to spend a couple days with my family before going back to uni. The more time I spend away from them, the more I miss them, so I’m excited to head home.

More Food Recommendations

These are places that I wanted to go to, but didn’t have enough time for.

CT Coffee & Coconuts – healthy/Instagram food (think avo toast but also cakes with flowers on it and whatnot)

Bakers & Roasters – strong coffee

Kartika – authentic Indonesian food. Wanted to go here but it’s closed on Sundays (that info is not on their website).

The Avocado Show – lots of avocado arranged in a very instagrammable fashion (pricey and I was running out of money so we went to Omelegg twice haha)

Albert Cuyp Market – all sorts of stuff sold at this market but apparently the food is really good and THIS is the place to go for stroopwaffles.

Any other food recommendations? Let me know!