When your staying in Amsterdam, you’ll need to have dinner (or lunch). Here you can find five cool restaurants, where you don’t go just to grab a bite, but also have a great dining experience. French, Indonesian, African, historical; it’s all present in Amsterdam!
La Marais: Trendy French dinner experience
In the Jodenbreestraat is Le Marais, named after the trendy Jewish quarter of Paris. A perfect name chosen because of the combination of the classic French cuisine with contemporary interiors. You can begin to enjoy an aperitif in the lounge or immediately sit down in the spacious restaurant. It’s interior is sleek and stylish. But for the French, the food (and wine) is what it’s all about. On the menu are simple dishes with pure flavors, also suitable for small wallets. You’d better try this!
Restaurant Merkelbach: Natural and authentic
In one of the last places outside of the 17th century, in the middle of the park Frankendael in Amsterdam, is Restaurant Merkelbach situated. This mansion is really beautiful restored. In the old coach-house is Merkelbach. The interior is a rather strange blend of natural and authentic, with great use of materials like wood and stone. It’s really a nice setting to have a romantic dinner. De chef uses season vegetables with a French/Mediterranean influence. I really recommend the sea bass. So try it when you have the chance. Don’t miss this great opportunity to have the best sea bass in your life.
Lunch room with class: De Compagnon
The small Burgundian sister of the Compagnon restaurant is coated down the Regulierdwarsstraat. The charming building, where the awning of the previous owner still hangs on the wall, has three floors and a wine cellar which is also available for private dining, for a meeting or a family dinner for your grandmothers birthday. On the inside no plush red, copper or mirrors as you expect in a classic brasserie, but muted light, cream-Baroque wallpaper, black benches and tables. The trendy bar doesn’t benefit the classic French style. On the other hand, the food couldn’t be more classic: lobster, oysters, foie gras, onion soup, entrecote béarnaise, sludge tongue and steak tartare.
Dining African Style
Fenan Klein Africa (little Africa) looks like the most Ethiopian restaurants, nice, cozy and messy. The interior is a mix of dark wood (the bar, floor and the panels on the wall) and African colors (the paintings, the motifs painted on the table and of course the animal skins). Brown pub meets jungle, so to speak. But Fenan Klein Afrika is a more distinguished Ethiopian restaurant than the many others? The cook is making just a little more effort to do everything à la minute, freshly prepared with the best ingredients. The traditional Ethiopian pancake, the injera, is just a ventilated and slightly richer spiced. The flavors are a bit more subtle and less bulky than other restaurants. Africa in Amsterdam, isn’t it great?
Indonesian restaurant Blauw (or Red?)
Tight red walls, modern red chairs and red mini-lights on the menu (know you’re not in the Red Light District 
)- that is a remarkable choice if your restaurant is called Blauw (=blue). Blauw is also synonymous with Indonesian, as in The Blue Diamonds. And it really is an Indian cuisine where they pamper you. No fusion, but authentic flavors with a subtle twist. Just the right trace of ginger, lemongrass or curry give the restaurant greater depth than in most other Indonesian restaurants. An example of their excellent care for food: for the saté Kambing is experimented with four butchers in the first months, before the perfect goat meat was found. And that care and effort you really taste.
