Photo: CUE
№ 01Grachtengordel · Open-fire fine dining · €€€€8.3
Under the starred restaurant sits a vinyl-only bar that opens at 19:00 Wednesday to Saturday, with a guest selector every night (Kay Suzuki and Eddy de Clercq are on the October bill); walk-in only, closed 22 and 30 October. Order the mezcal old fashioned with duck fat.
CUE is two ideas stacked on top of each other on the Utrechtsestraat, and both of them work. Upstairs, George Kataras (ex Vanderveen, where he and sommelier Mo Aous picked up a star in eighteen months) cooks everything over wood and coals: fermented, pickled, smoked, cured, then plated like it was no effort at all. The 2026 Michelin star says otherwise. Menus are called Volume 1 and Volume 2, because downstairs is the other idea: a Japanese-style listening bar where every record is vinyl, the sound system is custom built, and the old fashioned involves mezcal and duck fat. By its own account it won an international cocktail award before most of the street had noticed it existed. The move is dinner upstairs, then drift down for a nightcap while someone drops a jazz record you will spend all week trying to identify. Book the restaurant well ahead; the bar is walk-in only, which feels almost generous.
Order · No reservation? The basement bar is walk-in only, Wednesday to Saturday, and runs until 01:00 midweek and 02:00 on Friday and Saturday, with Kataras's bar food the cheapest route to starred cooking in the city. Sunday to Tuesday it stays shut.
Photo: Corner Store
№ 02Papaverdriehoek · Open-fire, Japanese-leaning sharing plates and natural wine · €€€8.3
The listening bar stands in the middle of the restaurant, on a vintage Tannoy system, and Gault&Millau writes that the turntables get real use between courses. Dinner Wednesday to Saturday from 18:00, no DJ schedule published. Start with the brioche and goat butter.
A former warehouse on the Papaverweg where a serious sound system gets equal billing with the grill. Corner Store is Amsterdam's answer to the Tokyo listening bar: blonde wood, steel trusses, records from a vinyl-collecting co-owner and DJs who play between courses, and a kitchen that runs most of the menu over fire. It reads Japanese but wanders happily. Brioche toasted on the BBQ with goat butter, kingfish collar with lime, poussin under a langoustine sambal. Plates land when they are ready and sharing is the whole point. The wine list leans natural, the sake list is short and smart, and the 47 euro vegetarian tasting menu is a quiet steal. Open Wednesday to Saturday, dinner from six, and the bar takes walk-ins for drinks until late. Come at golden hour, when the light hits the pale floor and the room starts humming.
Order · Open with the BBQ kingfish collar with lime: nine euros of the smartest smoke in Noord.
Photo: Café Wu, via Gault&Millau
№ 03Dapperbuurt · Chinese-inspired modern bistro · €€€8.2
A Chinese-inspired bistro, Tuesday to Saturday from 18:00, that turns into a vinyl listening bar later in the evening, with guest nights from 21 to 24 October for ADE. Drink from Chi Ling Wu's wine list: France, Germany, Italy.
Timo de Beurs already ran one of the city's best butcher counters, then opened this Chinese inspired bistro on the corner of the Dappermarkt in February 2024 and watched it detonate. Parool came early, published late, called it one of the most interesting restaurants in Amsterdam and gave it a 9 minus; the restaurant logged 800 reservations before dinner service that day, and Volkskrant and NRC piled on with praise of their own. The choice is a four-course menu or a short a la carte of snacks, small and large dishes, Chinese technique with French product fetishism and plating that would not embarrass a starred kitchen. Chi Ling Wu curates the wine, mostly French, German and Italian, and later in the evening music comes off vinyl through a proper sound bar, because everything here is slightly more considered than it needed to be. Tuesday through Saturday, dinner only. Book ahead; the hype was correct.
Order · First visit, take the four-course menu so the kitchen can walk you through its logic; the a la carte is for return trips. Tue-Sat from 18:00, book via the site widget.
Photo: Loop51
№ 04Dusartstraat · All-day brunch, vinyl bar · €€7.5
Records at brunch: the collection rotates daily, live DJs play Friday to Sunday (jazz, funk, house, soul) and anyone who spins can book a two-hour open-decks slot. Closes at 17:00 Monday to Thursday, 19:00 Friday to Sunday, and now takes bookings online. Order the 51 Benny.
Loop51 opened in November 2024 at the quiet Dusartstraat end of De Pijp with a custom sound system and a proposition that sounds gimmicky and is not: vinyl all day, every day, and live DJs on Friday and both weekend days playing jazz, funk, house and soul. The kitchen is not an afterthought propping up the decks. The 51 Benny is smoked butter, bacon, poached eggs and hollandaise on sourdough at 13.95 euros, the Royale swaps in salmon at 14.50, the Sticky Pulled Chicken Benny goes BBQ slow-cooked chicken with sriracha hollandaise at 16.50, and Love me Tenders stacks potato waffles, harissa yoghurt, hand-breaded tenders and hot honey at 15.50. Mimosas are five or six euros, depending on which line of the menu you trust, and either number tells you what kind of room this wants to be. Het Parool put it among the 25 best openings of the year and it holds 4.7 across 570 Google reviews, unusual for a place this new. Be clear about one thing: the food card does not change at the weekend, what changes is the programming, and that is genuinely the reason to come on a Saturday rather than a Tuesday.
Order · The brunch card is served daily 10:00 to 17:00, but come Saturday or Sunday from around midday when the DJs start and the room fills. Book online for up to six, email for bigger groups, and the window tables go first. Order the 51 Benny at 13.95 euros with a mimosa.
Photo: Klaproos Amsterdam
№ 05Buiksloterham · Pizza · €7.7
Pizza in Noord, and on Friday and Saturday friends of the house play records and people dance, open until 03:00 with the kitchen closing at 22:00. Order the Sottobosco, with mushroom, white truffle and parmesan.
A pizza joint bolted to a corner of Buiksloterham where the streets are still half construction site, Klaproos does one evening arc extremely well: antipasti and a blistered pizza early, low-intervention wine as the light goes, then DJs and dancing between the tables until deep into Friday and Saturday night. It started as a pop-up, never bothered to become anything more polished, and is better for it, expect paper napkins, pasta for the pizza-averse, and a crowd that walks or cycles in from the new-build lofts nearby. The kitchen closes around ten; the room does not, running to 3:00 on weekends. It's the rare place that functions as dinner, bar and club without being bad at any of them. Cheap, loud and fun: bring a group, order too many pizzas, stay well past your bedtime.
Order · Split a couple of antipasti first, then go classic with the margherita before the dough runs out.
Photo: Chez van Rijn
№ 06Rembrandtplein · French brasserie · €€7.6
A French brasserie on Rembrandtplein with a DJ Thursday to Saturday from dinner into the night (until 02:00 on Friday and Saturday), and pianists at the grand piano on Sundays, which from October open with a Jazz Brunch from 13:00 to 16:00. Order the steak frites with the house sauce.
Rembrandtplein has spent decades perfecting the art of separating tourists from their money, which makes Chez van Rijn feel almost subversive. The Poppes family, square fixtures since the nineties, gutted their old Kitchen & Bar Van Rijn and reopened it in February 2026 inside De Kroon, the monumental corner built for Wilhelmina's coronation, now all crystal chandeliers, fringed lamps, tapestry walls and oxblood banquettes. The kitchen plays the French bistro standards straight: oysters at 4.50, oeuf mayonnaise at 5.50, chicken liver pate, escargots, moules frites in beurre blanc, and the signature steak frites with entrecote and house sauce at 24.50. Holtkamp supplies the croquettes, which in Amsterdam is a statement of intent. The stated mission is giving the square back to Amsterdammers, and the room is doing its part: DJs Thursday to Saturday, someone at the grand piano on Sundays, kitchen running from lunch through late. Early reviews land on warm service and honest cooking rather than fireworks, which is precisely the assignment. It is not the best French food in the city; it is easily the best reason to be on Rembrandtplein after dark.
Order · Go Sunday for the grand piano, or early on Friday before the DJ takes over; the 5.50 oeuf mayonnaise is the smartest opener on the square.
Photo: De Boule De Boule
№ 07Waterlooplein · Ice cream · €7.4
An ice-cream and wine salon on Waterlooplein with music from vinyl to DJs, and free live jazz on selected Sunday afternoons from 16:00 to 20:00; next up 25 October, with Bas van der Wal and Vincente Pino. Open on Sundays only on listed dates. Order plant-based ice cream with a glass of natural wine.
Opened in June 2026 by hospitality entrepreneur Kirsi Rautiainen and sommelier Dominique, De Boule De Boule is the first ijs- en wijnsalon in the Netherlands, which sounds like a gimmick until you sit down. Two pastry chefs make a dozen fully plant-based flavours in house, and the combinations read like someone enjoying themselves: saffron and orange, olive oil and basil, coconut and lime. The wine list runs organic and natural with serious alcohol-free options, the room at the Stopera has a long bar, a lounge corner and a covered terrace, and vinyl or a DJ carries the sound from afternoon into evening. The pitch is that ice cream deserves a place in hospitality beyond the after-dinner shrug, and the trade press bit hard, with RestaurantKrant, Misset Horeca and Talkies all covering the opening. Too new for institution status, scored accordingly, but the craft is real. Open on selected Sundays only, some with free live jazz.
Order · Go for the pairing: a boule of olive oil and basil next to a glass of natural white is the order that explains the whole concept. Weekday afternoons are calmest.
Photo: Pllek
№ 08NDSM · Vegetable-forward · €€7.4
Dine & DJ every Friday and Saturday evening in the restaurant in Noord, with DJ Marcelo Umaña on the current listing and the odd live concert. Vegan and vegetarian dishes sit next to fish and meat on the menu; start with the Korean falafel, made with mung beans and kimchi and served with two kinds of tahini.
Yes, it's on every list, and no, that doesn't make it a trap. Pllek is a heap of shipping containers with a man-made beach on the NDSM wharf, and it earns its crowds honestly: the menu is at least three-quarters vegetarian, much of the produce is grown by the team in Amsterdam, and the meat and fish that do appear come wild or from the North Sea. The day runs long, breakfast from 09:30, lounging on the sand all afternoon, vegetable-led plates until the kitchen closes at 22:00, films on the beach in summer and DJs after dark on weekends. The cooking is better than any beach bar needs it to be, the sunset over the IJ is the best free show in the city, and on weeknights locals still comfortably outnumber the day-trippers. Take the NDSM ferry and stay too long.
Order · Build a table of the vegetable sharing plates and time it for sunset over the IJ.