Photo: Thalassa Zandvoort
№ 01Zandvoort · Seafood · €€€8.4
Seven generations of fishing family running the most serious fish kitchen on this coast.
Every beach town has one pavilion that quietly outcooks everyone else, and in Zandvoort it is Thalassa, parked at strandafgang 18 just north of the station. The family behind it has been in fish for seven generations, which explains why the sole arrives in beurre noisette without ceremony and the oysters are split between Irish Mor and Fines de Claire instead of whatever the wholesaler had. The room is warm wood and glass, open year round, with the kind of terrace where a long lunch dissolves into an early dinner. Order the Thalassa board first: haring, tuna, crab, Dutch shrimp and smoked salmon on one plank, basically the North Sea doing introductions. Even the kibbeling here is cut from proper cod and fried to order. Amsterdammers take the train specifically for this, thirty minutes door to door.
Order · Start with the Thalassa board, then ask what the day boat brought before you even look at the menu.
Photo: Berg Vis
№ 02Zandvoort · Fish counter · €8.2
Arlan Berg's red-white-blue fish cart, the true first stop of any Zandvoort beach day.
Since 2000 the red, white and blue cart of Arlan Berg has stood on Boulevard Barnaart, and for half of Zandvoort a beach day does not officially start until they have eaten here. This is Dutch fish culture at street level, done by a born Zandvoorter with a credo of serving everything the way he would want it himself: haring cut fresh while you watch, onions and zuur on a broodje, kibbeling and lekkerbek fried to order, plus rolmops, smoked mackerel and North Sea shrimp for the committed. There are a few reserved parking spots beside the cart and a sea view thrown in for free, and in winter locals still swear by a hot plate of fried fish here after a cold walk. He has been on national television; he would rather you judge the haring.
Order · Broodje haring with onions and a pickle, eaten standing up facing the sea, no cutlery.
Photo: Republiek Bloemendaal
№ 03Bloemendaal aan Zee · Modern European · €€€8.1
Permanent architect-built pavilion where dry-aged beef and wood-oven fish outclass the postcode.
Republiek is what happened when Bloemendaal aan Zee decided its pavilions should stop pretending to be temporary. The building is a proper piece of architecture on the sand, open essentially year round, and the kitchen has ambitions most beach spots would not dare put in writing: six-week dry-aged Simmentaler, a 700 gram cote de boeuf for two, half a lobster with sea aster and black garlic, and a fish of the day straight from the wood oven. From four o'clock the same oven switches to genuinely good pizzas, buffalo mozzarella and all, which makes it the rare place where the aperitif crowd and the dinner crowd both leave happy. Wines come from partner growers rather than a brewery contract list. Book the terrace for sunset; the whole coast turns up for it and the room still runs calmly.
Order · Half lobster with sea aster and black garlic to start, then whatever fish came out of the wood oven.
Photo: Mel's Pintxos & Winebar
№ 04Zandvoort · Basque pintxos · €€8.0
Basque pintxos counter in the village, run by beach veterans who studied in San Sebastian.
After 31 years running a Zandvoort beach pavilion, Jeroen and Hanneke Mel went to Bilbao and San Sebastian, learned pintxos properly, and opened this little wine bar halfway up the chicken stairs between the Zeestraat and the village center. The counter display does the talking: rows of skewered things on bread, garnalenkroket, bavette with chimichurri, bacalao, tortilla, each a few euros, so dinner becomes a game of one more round. The chalkboard splits fish, meat and vega, the wine list runs Spanish by the glass, and the room is small enough that you will be chatting with the owners by the second glass. It is the evening answer to a beach day: shower off the sand, walk over, graze until the board is empty. Open Thursday through Sunday from five, and worth planning your weekend around.
Order · Start with the garnalenkroket pintxo and the bavette chimichurri, then let the counter decide.
Photo: San Blas Bloemendaal
№ 05Bloemendaal aan Zee · Beach kitchen with Panamanian leanings · €€7.9
Year-round Panama-inspired strandhuis with Holtkamp croquettes and a fireplace for winter walks.
The owners of San Blas spent years around Panama's San Blas islands and came home to build a permanent beach house at the bottom of the Zeeweg, open 365 days a year. Summer means the glass walls slide away and the whole place becomes terrace; in January you thaw out by the fireplace after a dune walk, which is exactly when you will have it to yourself. The kitchen is more careful than the palm-frond styling suggests: croquettes and bitterballen come from Holtkamp, the Amsterdam benchmark, gambas al ajillo arrive still hissing, and the all-green salad of asparagus, peas and chickpea-lemon cream is real cooking rather than token vegetables. Tacos come in vegan and pulled chicken form, cakes come from Holtkamp too, and families, kitesurfers and hungover Haarlemmers all get treated the same.
Order · Gambas al ajillo with bread for the garlic oil, and a Holtkamp veal croquette on the side.
Photo: Fosfor Zandvoort
№ 06Zandvoort · Beach pavilion · €€7.8
Zandvoort's last south-beach pavilion: quiet dunes, monthly menus, glowing plankton after dark.
The very last pavilion on Zandvoort's south beach, a proper walk past the boulevard's noise until it is just you, the Waterleidingduinen dunes and a shack with grass growing on the roof. The name comes from the bioluminescent plankton that occasionally sets the surf glowing blue at night here, far from the streetlights. The kitchen keeps things simple and local and does it well: pasta vongole with sea vegetables, smoked salmon salad with dill mayonnaise, bavette off the grill, fresh apple pie with the coffee. The menu changes monthly and mains stay comfortably in the teens. Because access is by beach walk or a bike ride through the dunes, it never catches the Formula 1 crowd, so locals and surfers treat it as their living room from late March until the season ends in October.
Order · Pasta vongole with sea vegetables, then the fresh apple pie for the walk back.
Photo: Haarlem City Blog
№ 07Zandvoort · Open-fire grill · €€7.7
The surfers' pavilion at the quiet south end, now cooking almost everything over fire.
Walk south along the boulevard until the crowds thin and the dunes of the Waterleidingduinen take over, and you hit Tijn Akersloot, the year-round pavilion that has anchored this end of Zandvoort since 1965. It has always been the surfers' living room, all driftwood and salt-crusted windows, but the kitchen grew up: they now cook mainly over open fire, and it shows up on the plate in char and smoke rather than menu poetry. Thin stone-oven pizzas, burgers for the wetsuit crowd, fish and bavette off the flames, and on hot evenings a barbecue that runs until the sun drops into the sea directly in front of the deck. On sunny days the kiosk opens for people who refuse to leave the sand. Come at golden hour, the whole room turns amber.
Order · Take whatever fish is coming off the open fire that day and eat it on the terrace at sunset.
Photo: Jaap Beyleveld / Woodstock '69
№ 08Bloemendaal aan Zee · All-day beach club · €€7.4
The boho institution of Bloemendaal: barefoot brunch by day, live music as the sun drops.
Woodstock '69 has been the free-spirited heart of Bloemendaal aan Zee since the nineties, and it wears the hippie thing sincerely: driftwood, flags, a house session ale called Hippie Juice brewed for them by Poesiat & Kater, and live music and legendary sunset parties woven through the summer calendar. This is your one licensed dose of beach-club chaos in this chapter, but the daytime kitchen is better than it needs to be. Turkish eggs with feta cream and chili crisp, a proper granola bowl, tomato and anchovy numbers with confit garlic, and carajillos made with their own aged rum for the recovery hours. Come on a weekday morning and it is all yoga mats and flat whites; come Saturday evening and you will dance in the sand whether you planned to or not. Reserve dinner via their WhatsApp line.
Order · Turkish eggs with the chili crisp, then a Hippie Juice on the deck before the bands start.