Café Caron
The Caron family's tiny French bistro; Paris without the Thalys ticket.
The Caron family, TV chef Alain and sons David and Tom, built the bistro they grew up with: cramped in the right way, lit like a Doisneau photograph, and cooking French classics with zero ironic distance. The Michelin Guide lists it; the neighbourhood simply refuses to let it go. The menu stays short and seasonal, oysters, mackerel, a poached egg with green asparagus and Brillat-Savarin, hake in a proper bouillabaisse, black chicken with saffron, with a three-course set at €57 that's one of the better deals in serious Amsterdam cooking. The cellar leans hard into Burgundy, and the cheese board has been a house classic for the best part of a decade. Sunday lunch is the sleeper booking. It's the kind of room where you order the second bottle because leaving feels rude. Book ahead; there are maybe thirty seats and half of Amsterdam wants them.
Three courses for €57, and end on the cheese board with a Burgundy from the deep end of the list.
What to order
Full menu- Poached egg starter€16
The must-order opener; currently with green asparagus and Brillat-Savarin.
- Black-leg chicken€30
Juicy inside, crackling skin, reviewers rave; now with saffron and antiboise.
- Hake with bouillabaisse€30
Alain Caron's south-of-France reflex: fennel, seafood, proper broth.
- Boudin noir
When it's on: the apple mousse pairing gets called mythical in reviews.
- Three-course menu€57
The sane route through a handwritten-notebook kind of place.
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