The food in the average Dutch restaurant has improved hugely in recent years, and there are many places serving inventive takes on homegrown cuisine. The city also has a good assortment of ethnic restaurants, especially Indonesian, Chinese and Thai. There are also lots of bars – known as eetcafés – that serve adventurous food for a decent price in a relaxed and unpretentious setting. Note that the Dutch eat out relatively early, with most restaurants opening at 5.30pm or 6pm and closing around 10pm.
Amsterdam is well known for its coffeeshops, which dispense bags of cannabis or ready-made joints. The majority of coffeeshops are situated in the Old Centre, and because they’re not allowed to advertise their wares you’ll need to look at the menu to see what’s on offer. The hash you’ll come across is pretty self-explanatory, apart from Pollem, which is compressed resin and stronger than normal. Grass is a different story, with limitless varieties of Dutch weed, grown under artificial lights. Most of it is extremely potent and to be handled with care – ask before you buy and avoid any unpleasant surprises. Most coffeeshops open at 10am or 11am and close around midnight.
The Nieuwendijk/Kalverstraat strip in the Old Centre is home to high-street fashion and mainstream department stores, while nearby Koningsplein and Leidsestraat offer designer clothes and shoe stores. You’ll find more offbeat clothes shops in the Jordaan and in the small radial streets that connect the main canals – an area known as the Nine Streets. The cream of Amsterdam’s antique trade is in the Spiegelkwartier, centred on Nieuwe Spiegelstraat. As regards opening hours, many shops take Monday morning off; Thursday is late-opening night, with most places staying open until 9pm.
Amsterdam’s selection of bars range from traditional brown cafés – cosy places so called because of the dingy colour of their walls, stained by years of tobacco smoke – to slick designer bars. Most places stay open until around midnight or 1am during the week, and until 2am at weekends. Look out for the few tasting houses or proeflokalen that are left, originally the sampling rooms of small private distillers, now tiny, stand-up places specializing in jenever (gin); they tend to close around 8pm. The clubbing scene is intense, and there are lots of bars with DJs, as well as a decent array of live music options, particularly for jazz.
Our recommendations on where to eat, drink and shop are listed at the end of each region in this guide.