Bar Centraal
Glou Glou's Oud-West sibling: serious natural wine, unserious atmosphere, killer sharing plates.
Two doors on one corner just off the Ten Katemarkt: the Glou Glou vins naturels shop on one side, Bar Centraal on the other, both from the crew who taught De Pijp to drink cloudy wine and like it. Inside it's candle wax, shabby-chic tables and a blackboard of low-intervention bottles you will not find anywhere else in the city, the pours change constantly and the staff will happily hand you something Jura-shaped and weird if you ask nicely. The kitchen punches way above wine-bar standard: seasonal, organic sharing plates that actually track what the market outside is selling, not an afterthought of cheese cubes. It fills up by nine with the neighbourhood's entire creative payroll, so come early, grab a bar stool, and settle in. A two-minute stumble from the Foodhallen, and better than everything inside it.
Ask for the yuzu spritz to start, then let the staff pick your orange wine.
What to order
- Bread with bone marrow butter
The chalkboard constant everyone mentions, order it before the kitchen runs out
- Torched mackerel
Blowtorched to order; the fish dish reviewers keep photographing
- Burrata with seasonal fruit
Dressed differently every week, ginger one visit, stone fruit the next
- Octopus
Charred small plate built to soak up whatever natural wine they pour you
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