Rijsttafel appears as a signature dish in 1 Netherlands cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Rijsttafel · Amsterdam
Rijsttafel is Amsterdam's adopted Indonesian rice table: a single bowl of jasmine rice surrounded by twelve to twenty-five small dishes, sambals, satays, rendang, gado-gado, served as a long shared meal.
The Dutch developed rijsttafel in colonial-era Indonesia in the 19th century, expanding small-plate selamatan ritual meals into elaborate spreads to display the variety of the archipelago. After Indonesian independence in 1949 and the Indo-Dutch settlement in the Netherlands, Amsterdam restaurants like Tempo Doeloe, Sampurna and later Restaurant Blauw codified the form for European diners. Today rijsttafel is the most Amsterdam-specific Indonesian meal you will find in Europe, a format barely served in Indonesia itself.
Where to eat in Amsterdam:
- Restaurant Blauw
- Tempo Doeloe
- Warung Spang Makandra
- Sampurna
- Mama Makan