De Poldervogel

The Watergraafsmeer finally has its own corner restaurant, run by a couple with De Kas and Vuurtoreneiland in their knife rolls.

Lisa has lived in the Watergraafsmeer her whole life and cooked at De Kas up the road. Bart has lived here ten years, with stints at Vuurtoreneiland and Reine & La Rue in Melbourne. In May 2026 they took over a corner spot on the Buys Ballotstraat and did the sensible thing: they opened the restaurant their own street was missing. The kitchen calls it refined comfort food, which in practice means oysters with kombu mignonette, a bitterbal made of confit duck, and a twelve hour short rib that slumps onto its mousseline the moment your fork gets near. Wines come from small European growers and the room runs on the kind of warmth you only get when the owners live around the corner. Het Parool profiled them within weeks and the Meer, a neighborhood that usually has to cycle for its dinners, promptly claimed every table. Book, or come early and eat at the bar.

Start with the duck bitterballen and a couple of oysters, then split the short rib. Saturday opens at 15:00 for an early borrel before the dinner crowd lands.

Photo: De Poldervogel