Where do you eat with kids in Amsterdam? When we first arrived in Amsterdam, we stayed a few nights in a family suite called Hotel Roemer. It had a ground-level spacious room with a little outdoor garden to accomodate families and was very close to Vondelpark where I had visions of us riding bikes around and getting coffee. But I knew when we got here, my number one priority would be pancakes in Amsterdam. Our family loves pancakes in Seattle and we have even traveled for pancakes in Japan. So of course we would look for pancakes on this trip too.
Sure enough our hotel was also very close to a traditional pancake restaurant called De Vier Pilaren. Pancakes in Amsterdam are quite different than American pancakes. We have a restaurant in my hometown near Vancouver called de Dutch Pannekoek house so if you’ve ever eaten there this is the same type of pancake. And they do have American pancakes in Amsterdam too, but we did not eat those-we can get American pancakes at home.
For kids especially, pancakes are a perfect meal. We really enjoyed the pancakes we ate at Pancakes Amsterdam. This was an adorable pancake restaurant along a canal and I loved how this restaurant was decorated. The kids had really cute meals and I loved the colored pencils that came with their activity menus. We were trying to figure out what kind of toppings the kids’ pancakes came with and then they showed up with ALL sorts of toppings.
But we did not just eat pancakes in Amsterdam, even though I probably could have eaten them for ALL of the days. (If you neeed more suggestions for yummy pancakes, I found this list on the Amsterdam tourism site too!) We also visited the Foodhallen that was a fantastic mall of food. It was very crowded so with kids this one was pretty tough and I wanted to go back again to see if there was a less busy time. When we went we miraculously found a table and left the guys to hold it while the hubby and I ran to food stalls within eye-site to collect our meal. There were so many different food genres represented here-we had toasts and sushi, bao and crispy fried vegetables. This was definitely a fun place to eat!
We also went to a really laid-back apperitivo restaurant called Piccolo right next to Foodhallen. There were all sorts of games the kids could play and we ordered plates of food and chatted and almost had a date while the kids entertained themselves. The room was cozy and decorated with plants and trendy odds and ends. It felt comfy without being cluttered and the food was delicious-this ended up being one of our faovrite meals.
At grocery stores, we noticed there were many “make your own” orange juice machines. These were a lot more reasonable than what we would pay for fresh squeezed juice in Seattle so we had fun stopping at many grocery stores to make and drink orange juice. I love visiting grocery stores when we travel!
The bakeries in Amsterdam were a big hit with our family too. One day we ended up at this bakery in our neighborhood and had a delicious breakfast with toasts and tea. We loved that there were so many bakeries and delis all over Amsterdam. And the fries!!?? I’m a little thankful I don’t know of fries like this where we live, because I would eat them way too much.
I think we could have eaten at different places for days and never hit the same one twice. But weeks after we have returned from this trip, we still remember pancakes in Amsterdam the most and I’m looking forward to the day we can go back and have pancakes in Amsterdam again.
(PS. For more about where we dined, played and stayed in Amsterdam, check out our post from our visit to the Nemo Museum and our tea in the Smallest House in Amsterdam too!)
Thanks for reading! You can find out more about Terumi, a family travel writer and blogger in Seattle on her About Me page.
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)
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