Brasserie Vrijburcht

Steigereiland's waterside brasserie inside a resident-built co-op, complete with boat mooring.

Vrijburcht is the kind of place IJburg's masterplanners dream about and almost never get: a brasserie tucked into a resident-built co-op building on Steigereiland, sharing walls with a tiny theatre, opening onto a terrace where the water starts a few steps from your table and arriving by boat is genuinely encouraged, there's a mooring dock. The kitchen does French-leaning seasonal cooking without fuss: proper lunch sandwiches and eggs Norwegian by day, a compact dinner menu with real vegetarian and vegan options by night, plus a high tea built by an actual pastry chef and a five-course high wine for afternoons that deserve to get out of hand. It's been at it for well over a decade, open seven days from eleven, and it functions as the island's living room. On a sunny evening, that terrace is quietly one of Amsterdam's best seats.

Book the high wine on a sunny afternoon and sit on the waterside terrace; arrive by boat if you can.

Photo: Brasserie Vrijburcht