Amsterdam Expats – The Best Restaurants to Take Your Parents
Choosing the Right Places
When you’re an expat living in a city far from home, there is something deeply satisfying about having the folks come visit you as you attempt to build a new life for yourself on your own. It fills you with pride, that is… until it fills you with dread. After you realise you need to figure out exactly which restaurants to take your parents, every day, for a whole week. All whilst trying to please everyone, everytime.
It can get messy and frustrating catering to different tastes. Especially if your parents simple palates don’t quite comprehend the niche, complex, and overly hyped spots you’d happily spend your Saturday evening standing in a queue for. Nevertheless, they are your parents, and you need to be better prepared than this.
But they are also for a limited time – tourists. It’s natural they will want to taste some well-known Dutch favourites such as: apple pie, frites, stroopwaffel. All of which are important side courses on their Dutch food experience. But for lunch and dinner you won’t want to shuffle around a busy city like Amsterdam eating snack food on bustling street corners. Or trying to impress with those coveted places that are too darn important to take bookings and get turned away from restaurant to restaurant. Your poor parents lagging behind.
You’ll want to sit down, relax, and comfortably catch up over food. And for that you need: solid options from places which actually let you book ahead of time; have frequent reliable service; and offer dishes which would please even the fussiest of parents.
Parent Pleasers
The versatile, delicious, and cosy spots on our list are parent pleasers with enough flavour to satisfy your undoubtedly much more experimental and distinguished tastes…
Your parents might spend the entire dinner emphatically praising your courage for taking a leap of faith in a new city or relentlessly deconstructing and questioning all of your life choices. But however your family catchups tend to roll out, at least do them over a worthwhile meal.
We have options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Plus, you can book at ALL THESE RESTAURANTS. And they cater to non veggie diets. The ultimate parent-pleasing list.
REMEMBER:
Vegan Options
Your Carnivorous friends will also find options here
Gartine 🌱 🍗
Breakfast & Lunch
Tasty, wholesome food in a cosy relaxed atmosphere. Gartine is very central (just off Kalverstraat) and thus definitely worth booking ahead of time to save yourself, and your parents, from disappointment. The menu changes seasonally, and most of the vegetables in their dishes come from their own garden. Adorable enough to come straight from your favourite childhood storybook. Moreover you can taste the freshness of ingredients with each bite.
Jansz 🍗
Lunch & Dinner
Often considered one of the best restaurants in Amsterdam, Jansz is the restaurant to choose if you really want to spoil your parents or let them spoil you (no judgement). An excellent assortment of vegetarian plates where the seemingly humble vegetable is given space to really shine. The restaurant itself is beautiful and the perfect setting to wow anyone.
The Cottage
Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner
Maybe your parents are British and going a single Sunday without a traditional Sunday roast is unspeakable. Or maybe they’re not British but just appreciate good hearty food in a relaxed surrounding. The Cottage is perfect regardless. Their veggie cottage pie and mushroom rolls are standouts from a standout menu. British food in Amsterdam might not be top of your list but this is truly the best of British right in the middle of the Dutch city.
Five Brothers Fat 🌱 🍗
Dinner
Want to take your parents somewhere tasty but still chic? Where the food is top notch but also varied enough to please a group? Then Five Brothers Fat is a great option. A tapas restaurant that is sophisticated enough to feel like a special treat for your family but in such a buzzing setting, it never feels stiff. Too many good veggie options to mention but the Bravas and Pan tomato are a must for the table. A few outposts across the city to choose from.
De Duvel 🍗
Lunch & Dinner
De Duvel is perfect for when you want that familiar feel only a local institution with a great atmosphere can provide. You’ll find a good mix of people here. Some for drinks, some for food, but all for the ambiance and friendly service. The menu offers both robust, generous dishes such as ravioli and shakshuka or casual sides and snacks for grazing. All tasty and moreish.
Café Nieuw Amsterdam 🍗
Lunch & Dinner 🌱 🍗
If your parents are classy then your favourite frites spot by the river where terrifying, fiercely hungry seagulls swoop angrily above your head isn’t going to cut it. Café Nieuw Amsterdam should be on your list if you want somewhere that has an old-world touch of grand, a concentrated but thought-out menu, great lighting, and a majestic fountain in the terrace – the last two are little perks, but excellent if you aim to impress. Their food is interesting without being pretentious. A worthy spot for a special occasion. Some of the best frites in the city (sans seagulls).
