4850

Seven hundred natural wines on a nothing street; a citywide pilgrimage.

By day it's a Scandinavian-calm coffee bar, La Cabra beans, house cinnamon-cardamom buns worth the detour alone, and from three in the afternoon it flips into one of the best natural wine bars in the Netherlands, full stop. The cellar runs past 700 references with a French spine of Jura, Burgundy, Loire and grower Champagne; names like Ganevat, Labet and Overnoy show up on a chalk-quiet list in a side street off the Oosterpark where nothing this good has any business being. No reservations, card only, no phone, you walk in, take a stool, and let the staff pour you something you'll be chasing for years. Sandwiches and pastries do the food work rather than a full kitchen, so treat it as the long apéro before dinner elsewhere in Oost, or the reason you never make it there.

Ask for a by-the-glass pour from the Jura shelf and a cardamom bun.

Photo: 4850