Vegetarian Food in Amsterdam: What we ate in 3 days

Finding vegetarian food in Amsterdam is easy-peasy. Everyone understands English and knows what is vegetarian food. Like any big city, it has ample restaurants to choose from. I researched quite a bit and shortlisted a few of them. But, we managed to eat at only 2 restaurants in 3 days we were there. If you love cheese, Amsterdam will be heaven for you. Though many kinds of cheese are technically non-veg as they contain rennet. We found this after we had tried an endless variety of cheese. So we didn’t bother much about rennet.

If you haven’t yet, check out my trip report on 10 days in Benelux.

Day 1 – Arrival

We were tired after our red-eye flight and for lunch just ordered room service at our hotel. It had limited vegetarian dishes on the menu and the food was bland. We didn’t enjoy it much and wished had ordered from a food delivery app.

Dinner at Indrapura

Address – Rembrandtplein 42, 1017 CV Amsterdam – 15

The first thing I wanted to try in Amsterdam was a concept called Rijsttafel (rice table). Indonesians brought it into Amsterdam. I didn’t hear about this when we went to Indonesia, but something I found when reading about Amsterdam. It is basically a set menu comprising several dishes which go along with the rice. I searched a lot of restaurants that offer rice table in Amsterdam and chose Indrapura as they had a good vegetarian menu at a reasonable price of 26.5 Euro pp. We went here for dinner on our first night in Amsterdam. It is best to call and book a table to avoid any waiting.

We arrived at our booking time (9 pm) and were ushered to our table. They presented us with a menu which had different set menus and obviously I ordered a vegetarian rice table for 4 of us. For starters, they served us hot and crispy spring rolls. After we were done, they set our table and kept on getting various dishes. They served us quite a lot of dishes that our table didn’t even have an inch of space left. Along with all the dishes, we got 2 types of rice. They get all dishes at once and leave you to dig in and enjoy.

Identifying dishes was impossible, and we just tried everything. Some dishes were wonderful, and some we didn’t like. My major reason for choosing this restaurant was that they served white rice and yellow rice (cooked in coconut broth). We loved their yellow rice. We all felt that many dishes were good in themselves, but not really go with rice. In all, a good unique dinner. I’ll recommend trying Rijsttafel when in Amsterdam, but not sure if Indrapura is the best.

Day 2 – Keukenhof and Tulips

Most of the day we spent in Keukenhof. For breakfast, we went to the restaurant at the entrance. They didn’t have any savoury veg item. So we devoured cookies, apple pie, and chocolate puff. I like their hot chocolate. It was a sugar overload early in the morning and would have preferred some savoury items.

There are restaurants at regular intervals throughout Keukenhof. Mid-day when we were hungry we stopped at another restaurant and most of the dishes again were sweet.

In the evening, we stopped at a stand and had a waffle. It was about decent, nothing like the one you get in Belgium.

I was disappointed with the food choices at Keukenhof and we had way too much sweet stuff in a day.

For dinner, I really wanted to go to Foodhallen, which houses lots of indoor food outlets serving cuisines from around the world. But we were lazy to go out and just called for delivery of Indian food. We used the Deliveroo app, which served us well.

Day 3 – Exploring Amsterdam

Today was our only full day in Amsterdam, and we ate at a lot of different places.

Breakfast at Pancake Amsterdam

They have locations across the city but we went to the one which is right next to the Ann Frank House. Here you must try the Dutch-style pancakes which are flat, thin, crepe-like pancakes. They are available in savoury and sweet. They even have American style pancakes. We got sofa seating, which was cosy and super comfortable. The service was quick and friendly. They don’t accept cash and you must pay by a debit/credit card.

I love anything with strawberries, so ordered the one with strawberry, yoghurt and lemon honey. It was delicious but don’t compare it with American style pancakes. Both are separate dishes. Kapil ordered the apple crumble pancake with ice cream and cinnamon. I don’t like apples much but still loved it. In savoury ones, we tried the spinach pancake with goat cheese and pine nut and one more variety with onions and tomatoes. We also ordered Poffertjes, which are like baby pancakes. We enjoyed all of them and everyone had a different favourite.

Lunch at Albert Cuypstraat Market

I love exploring street food markets to try out a variety of dishes. At the beginning of the market, we stopped at a cheese shop. I was amazed by the variety of cheese this one shop had. We asked for recommendations and bought a unique rainbow cheese (Yes; it had all colours of a rainbow) which lasted us for the entire trip.

Then we tried Stroopwafel. Stroopwafel is a unique Dutch dish that is basically two waffle-like wafer cookie joined by a caramel filling. Here he was making fresh ones and you can’t leave Amsterdam without trying them.

The third stall we stopped at was selling all Mediterranean dishes. Initially, we thought it to be all non-veg dishes, but on asking we found out that 90% of his dishes were veg. We tried some of them, didn’t look tempting but turned out to be finger-licking good. If you go to Albert Cuypstraat, you must try different stuff here.

We finished with freshly squeezed orange juice. This was only the vendor which had seats available, and honestly, the key reason to stop here was to give rest to our legs.

Early Dinner at Saravana Bhavan

This is at the corner of Albert Cuypstraat market and once we spotted it, every plan went out of the window and just wanted to have south Indian food. My family loves dosa way too much, and it is a rarity in a foreign country. So we relished dosas here, even after stuffing our-self at Albert Cuypstraat market.

Other restaurants we wanted to try for Vegetarian food in Amsterdam

• Foodhallen – food court – Bellamyplein 51, 1053 AT Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• El Vino – Mexican – Lange Leidsedwarsstraat  51 – Amsterdam, PX 1091
• Het Karbeel – Cheese Fondue, soup and desert – Red Light district – Warmoesstraat 16, 1012 JD Amsterdam
• Sherpa – Indian, Nepali and Tibetan – Has momos, some local dishes and Indian food – Korte Leidsedwarsstraat 58, 1017 RD Amsterdam

That’s it on vegetarian food in Amsterdam. It has so many types of cheese, that I guess if you only eat cheese in a day, you might not be able to try all the variety. We enjoyed everything we ate in Amsterdam. I really wished we had more time to try some other places and explore a bit more on vegetarian food in Amsterdam. 

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Check out all the other posts in this series:

Benelux, Paris & Iceland Trip Planning and Booking
10 days in Benelux: An Epic Itinerary and Trip Report
Vegetarian Food in Belgium: What we ate in 5 days
2 Days in Paris: Trip Report & Our Misadventures
10 days in Iceland: An Ultimate Itinerary & Trip Report
Accommodation and Vegetarian Food in Iceland

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