Solo at the bar*
A stool, a plate, a glass, nobody bothering you. Some of the best meals in this guide are for one.
Zoldering
A Michelin star wearing a brown-café jacket, with an 800-bottle wine list.
Café de Klepel
All-French wine café where the daily bistro menu keeps pace with 300 bottles.
Café Modern
Set-menu cooking in a former bank, with private dining in the vault.
4850
Seven hundred natural wines on a nothing street; a citywide pilgrimage.
Bar Centraal
Glou Glou's Oud-West sibling: serious natural wine, unserious atmosphere, killer sharing plates.
Nam Kee
Steamed oysters in black bean sauce, famous since 1981, queue and eat.
Bistrot Neuf
The Haarlemmerstraat's proper French bistro, pouring forty wines by the glass since 2009.
Coba Taqueria
Amsterdam's most serious Mexican cooking, in a shed behind the workshops.
Lucius
Amsterdam's seafood classic since 1975: oysters, Dover sole, zero gimmicks.
Glou Glou
The corner bar that started Amsterdam's natural wine obsession in 2015.
Bar Bouche
A pocket-sized bourgondisch bistro punching far above its Wibautstraat postcode.
Café de Reiger
The Jordaan brown café that actually cooks, ribs, classics, open till one.
Mesa Mesa
Proper Spanish tapas and vermut, rescuing Marie Heinekenplein from mediocrity.
Bar Jules
Valeriusplein's all-day living room: Spanish sharing plates, terrazzo bar, walk-ins meant literally.
Sama Sebo
A 1969 time capsule of rijsttafel culture amid the P.C. Hooftstraat boutiques.