Bakhuys

Doors at 7:00 on weekdays, a wood-fired stone oven at the centre of the room, and breakfast served until 14:00.

Bakhuys is a fifth-generation family bakery, trading since 1926, and the Sarphatistraat cafe is built around a wood-fired stone oven that runs all day. It opens at 7:00 Monday to Friday, which puts it in the very small group of Amsterdam addresses where a genuine 7:30 meeting is possible, and it keeps serving breakfast until 14:00 on the reasonable grounds that not everyone's morning starts at the same hour. The bread is organic sourdough with nothing added to it, the patisserie counter runs to pecan tartelettes, lemon meringue and hazelnut chocolate, and the coffee is Bocca's Gusto blend. The room is a tall hard-surfaced hall with long trestle tables, benches, a few two-tops and bare concrete, and the bakery advertises itself as a workspot with free wifi and always a seat at the long tables. That is the caveat worth knowing: at 8:00 it is calm and you can talk, but the acoustics are unforgiving once it fills, and communal seating means a confidential conversation needs one of the smaller tables. From noon the oven switches to sourdough pizza, which is what the neighbourhood actually queues for.

Weekdays 7:00 to 17:00, weekends from 8:00. Breakfast is served until 14:00. Go before nine for a quiet room, ask for a two-top rather than the communal table if the conversation is private, and note that no menu or prices are published online.

Photo: Bakhuys