26 April 2026

Markets, herring and warm stroopwafels

Dutch food has a modest reputation, and the Dutch are often the first to make jokes about it. But some of the best things I have eaten here were bought from a market stall and eaten standing up, in the wind, with my bike leaning against my leg. Weekends, for me, are built around that.

The long street market

In De Pijp, south of the centre, there is a long street market that runs for what feels like a kilometre. It is loud, a bit chaotic and very much a working market: fruit and vegetables, cheese, fabric, phone cases, flowers, socks in bulk, fish, spices, and people selling everything in a voice that carries three stalls in both directions. I go with a vague list and come back with something completely different, usually flowers, because they are cheap here in a way that never stops surprising me.

The neighbourhood around it is worth wandering too. The streets are straight and narrow, there are small places to eat from every corner of the world, and on a sunny day every step and doorstep becomes a terrace.

Herring, the right way

I resisted raw herring for my whole first year. Then a friend took me to a fish stall, ordered for both of us, and showed me the two ways to eat it: either the traditional way, holding the fish by the tail and lowering it into your mouth, or cut into pieces on a little paper plate with a toothpick flag. It comes with chopped raw onion and pickles. It tastes soft, salty and clean, nothing like what I had feared. The new-season herring in early summer is a small national event, and people genuinely queue for it.

If herring is too much, start with kibbeling: chunks of fried fish with a garlic sauce. Nobody has ever said no to that.

A stroopwafel, freshly made

The packaged ones from the supermarket are fine. The ones made at a market stall are something else: two thin waffles pressed in front of you, sliced open, filled with warm caramel syrup and handed over still bendy. Eat it immediately, before the syrup sets, and accept that your fingers will be sticky for the rest of the afternoon.

The quieter Saturday

On the edge of the Jordaan there is a smaller weekend market around a church square, with organic vegetables, good bread, mushrooms, cheese and the occasional crate of old records. It is calmer and more local, the kind of place where people stop to chat with the stallholder about the weather. I buy bread there, a wedge of aged cheese with crunchy crystals in it, and sit on the church steps for a while doing absolutely nothing.

That is probably my favourite Amsterdam meal: bread, cheese, an apple, a bit of sun, and nowhere to be.