Cocktails, wine bars and dives: drinking in Amsterdam for grown-ups.
Cocktail bars, wine bars, dive bars and gastropubs: drinking in Amsterdam for grown-ups.
Tales and Spirits on Lijnbaanssteeg is the Amsterdam cocktail boudoir of the old guard, antique cabinets, chandeliers, drinks served in vintage glassware.
Signature drink: Vintage-glass cocktails with house infusions
Food: Snacks and bar plates
Door 74 on Reguliersdwarsstraat is the Amsterdam speakeasy that opened the city's cocktail wave, by reservation only, behind an unmarked door, art-deco-trimmed.
Signature drink: Pre-prohibition classics, seasonal menu
Food: No food
Hiding in Plain Sight on Rapenburg is the Amsterdam American-style cocktail bar, big-windowed despite the speakeasy framing, sharp menu, unfussy room.
Signature drink: Seasonal menu, riffs on the Manhattan
Food: No food
Café Hoppe on Spui has poured Amsterdam jenever and beer since 1670, the brown cafe with the dark-wood interior and the stand-at-the-bar after-work crowd.
Signature drink: Jenever, Dutch pilsner on tap
Food: Bitterballen, cheese, bar snacks
Café 't Smalle on Egelantiersgracht in the Jordaan is the Amsterdam canal-side brown cafe with the postcard terrace, the building going back to a 1780 distillery.
Signature drink: Jenever, Belgian and Dutch ale
Food: Bar snacks
In 't Aepjen on Zeedijk occupies an Amsterdam building dating to 1475, one of two surviving wooden facades, the brown cafe with the longest backstory.
Signature drink: Jenever, classic Dutch beer
Food: Bar snacks
Café Papeneiland on the corner of Prinsengracht and Brouwersgracht is the Amsterdam brown cafe from 1642, the apple pie inside almost as canonical as Winkel 43.
Signature drink: Jenever, beer on tap, coffee with apple pie
Food: Apple pie, bitterballen, cheese
Café de Reiger on Nieuwe Leliestraat in the Jordaan is the Amsterdam eetcafe with the back-room kitchen, brown-cafe service out front, no-frills dinners to follow.
Signature drink: Belgian beer, jenever, house wine
Food: Daily-changing kitchen, classics
Twenty Third Bar at Hotel Okura sits next to Ciel Bleu on the top floor, the Amsterdam cocktail bar with the city's most generous view across the city.
Signature drink: Japanese-inflected cocktails with city view
Food: Bar snacks, oysters
Wynand Fockink on Pijlsteeg has poured Amsterdam jenever since 1679, the proeflokaal where you bend over the tulip glass without lifting it from the bar.
Signature drink: Jenever flights, traditional Dutch liqueurs
Food: No food
Café Chris on Bloemstraat in the Jordaan has poured Amsterdam beer since 1624, claimant to the city's oldest brown cafe title, the room small enough to know.
Signature drink: Pilsner, jenever, no music
Food: Bar snacks
Rosalia's Menagerie at Conservatorium Hotel is the Amsterdam high-end cocktail bar pulled from old Havana, aged-rum lineup and a tropical-leaning seasonal menu.
Signature drink: Aged-rum cocktails, riffs on the daiquiri
Food: Bar snacks
Peak food season in Amsterdam is year-round.
Local dining hours: lunch around 12:30, dinner from 19:30.
service is typically included; small extra is welcome but not expected.
Ask the next local you meet what they would order. Amsterdam rewards trust.