Chef movePhoto: Kees van Duinhoven, via Hospitality Management
Grachtengordel (Gouden Bocht) · Started 3 August 2026
Pasquale Carfora, Waldorf Astoria
JRE Chef of the Year takes over the Waldorf Astoria kitchens after Spectrum's exit.
The Waldorf Astoria has answered the Sidney Schutte question. Pasquale Carfora, named JRE Chef of the Year 2025 and until May the chef-owner of the garlanded Italian restaurant Aroma in Vaassen, became executive chef of the whole canal-house operation on 3 August. It is a proper full-circle move: Carfora started out in luxury hotels before going solo, collected Michelin and Gault&Millau recognition plus a 50 Top Italy listing at Aroma, then closed it this spring at its height. His first job is the big one: shaping the restaurant that will follow two-star Spectrum, which went dark when Schutte left in May. Watch this address.
New openingPhoto: De Westkrant
Kinkerbuurt (Oud-West) · Opened 22 July 2026
Mano Bakery
A Veronese couple bake their grandfather's legacy onto the Kinkerstraat.
Lara and Alex moved from Verona four years ago, kept proper jobs, then did the sensible Italian thing: six months of intensive baker training and a bakery of their own in the old Chez Rosie space. The name honours Lara's grandfather, whose garage bakery forty years ago grew into a wholesale business back home. The counter runs from sourdough and tomato-basil focaccia to an almond-cream pastry with peach compote and jasmine chocolate at five euros, and the mortadella sandwich with pistachio pesto and burrata at six fifty is an instant Kinkerstraat lunch answer. The kitchen is open to the street, the window seats are built for people-watching, and Wednesday to Sunday the block smells like Verona. Daytime only, until four.
New openingPhoto: 't Lemmeke
Oud-Zuid · Opened 7 July 2026
't Lemmeke
The Wijmpje Beukers crew cross an English country pub with a Dutch eetcafé.
The team behind Wijmpje Beukers, Schotsheuvel and De Zingende Zwaan took a corner on the Van Breestraat and built the pub Amsterdam didn't know it was missing: candlelight, no reservations, and a card that swings happily between Britain and the Low Countries. Chef De Groot came over from Ron Gastrobar Sofialaan. Bangers and mash at €17 sits next to a stamppot of the month at €18; there is steak tartare at €14, a cordon bleu, a burger with bacon jam, Zeeland oysters, and then sticky toffee pudding or Eton mess to finish. Walk in from 17:00, from 16:00 at weekends, stay as long as the evening lasts, closed Mondays. Fourth address for this crew, and the cosiest by some distance.
New openingPhoto: Bar Kaat
Ten Katebuurt (Oud-West) · Opened early July 2026
Bar Kaat
Twelve friends from Limburg bought an empty corner kroeg and poured Oud-West a sjoes.
The best opening story of the summer involves no chef at all. Twelve friends from Geleen, nine of them old classmates, bought a long-vacant corner cafe at the Ten Katemarkt, renovated it themselves around day jobs in marketing, HR and finance, and opened it as Bar Kaat: a self-declared light-brown bar for the neighbourhood. The house specialty is the sjoes, the Limburg tradition of beer with a splash of cola, served without irony. Add a vermouth Friday, a zoervleis Sunday and a markthap built from the stalls next door. No kitchen beyond snacks, fair prices on pils and wine, and by their own account the only argument in the whole project was which beer to pour.
New openingPhoto: Stadscafé
Westerpark (Cultuurpark Westergas) · Opened 1 July 2026
Westergas finally gets a proper all-day room, built by the Teds, Roest and De Willem crowd.
Westergas has never been short of places to drink and has been short of anywhere to actually sit down and eat, which is the gap Stadscafé walked into on 1 July. It occupies the old district office attached to Conscious Hotel Westerpark, and the pedigree is heavy: Michiel Huisman from Teds, Jamie van der Will and Maarten de Vries from De Willem and Roest, with Jef van den Hout cooking as co-owner. Antwerp's Gestalt architecten did the room in black, dark brown and red velvet, roughly 125 seats plus a terrace that runs straight into the park. Doors at 07:00 daily. A nduja tosti with gruyère and shallot compote is ten euros.
New openingPhoto: Vermut, via Entree Magazine
Oud-West · Opened 1 July 2026
Vermut
An aperitivo bar that takes vermouth as seriously as the kitchen.
Cato Fröhlich started in hospitality at fourteen, cooked her way through Australia, and at 29 has her own room on the Jan Pieter Heijestraat, the old Nonna site. Vermut is exactly what it says: a South European aperitivo bar with a proper vermouth list, poured by the glass by an owner who will happily walk you through the styles. The kitchen sends out plates as they are ready: Farine sourdough with butter, anchovies with crème fraîche and lemon, meatballs in tomato sauce, grilled sea bass with salsa verde at €16. Happy hour does a coconut negroni at €6.50. High tables up front for the borrel, intimate tables at the back, terrace out front. From 16:00, closed Monday and Tuesday.
New openingPhoto: Nara Nara
Dapperbuurt (Oost) · Opened early July 2026
Nara Nara
Mana Mana's former chef lights his own fire: Egyptian sharing plates on Dapperplein.
Chef Saïd spent years cooking at Mana Mana, the De Pijp room people get quietly evangelical about, and now he finally has his own address on the Dapperplein. Nara Nara comes from nar, Egyptian for fire, and that is the whole idea: a place people gather around to eat the way he grew up eating. He was raised on a farm in Egypt growing his own ingredients, and it shows. Vegetables carry the menu, fish and meat play backup for the committed, and everything lands in the middle of the table because that is how sharing works. Weekends it opens at noon; midweek it is dinner only. The Dappermarkt corner of Oost just got its gathering place.
Chef movePhoto: Amstel Hotel, via Hospitality Management
Weesperzijde (Amstel) · Announced 10 June 2026
Wouter Wingelaar, The Dining Room
The 212 sous-chef takes the stove at the Amstel Hotel's Dining Room.
The Dining Room at the Amstel is the sort of room where the carpet has opinions, and it now has a new chef de cuisine. Wouter Wingelaar was announced on 10 June, arriving with three years as sous-chef at two-star 212 under Thomas Groot and Richard van Oostenbrugge, a year and a half running the pass at De Juwelier, and time at Merlet in Schoorl with Jonathan Zandbergen. His stated pitch is restraint: few elements, strong technique, seasonal and local, which is either brave or obvious depending on how much hotel dining you have sat through. Early plates include a courgette flower millefeuille, green asparagus with morels, and sea bass with fennel and shellfish sauce.
Coming soonPhoto: AmsterdamNow
Centrum (Utrechtsestraat) · Opening announced for September 2026
KAMA Handroll Bar
The 212 crew go loud and cheap with a 35-seat handroll counter.
Richard van Oostenbrugge and Thomas Groot hold two Michelin stars at 212 and have a habit of opening rooms that grow a queue within a fortnight. KAMA is their handroll bar, going into Utrechtsestraat 32 with a 35-seat counter and a private space upstairs. Roef Lanen, currently at 212, runs the kitchen alongside Japanese chef Tomoaki Ikegami. The name comes from the fatty cut of tuna near the gills, and the format is deliberately unserious by this group's standards: rock and roll volume, no barriers, seven days a week, single handrolls from seven to nine euros and a full chef's menu if you want the whole thing. Announced for September. The site still says soon.
Chef movePhoto: Hospitality Management / The College Hotel (Sidney Schutte)
Oud-Zuid · Opening September 2026 (announced)
Sidney Schutte, The Gym
Two-star Spectrum chef trades tasting menus for a gym in Oud-Zuid.
The biggest chef move of the year: Sidney Schutte, who held two Michelin stars at Spectrum in the Waldorf Astoria for over a decade, has left and is opening The Gym this September, in the actual former gymnasium behind The College Hotel, high ceilings, own entrance, quiet terrace and all. The point, he says, is that the top end is changing: no evening-long menu marathons, just sharp cooking with fish, shellfish and vegetables, serious wine, and the freedom to leave after two courses. He'll also run the hotel's entire food operation. Mark it: opening soon, book fast.
New opening