Amsterdam's brown cafés

A bruin café is defined less by its menu than by what nobody has changed: dark panelling, sawdust on the floor, jenever poured to the brim at the bar. The list covers the old Zeedijk and Spui rooms that began as distilleries or lock keepers' houses. It also covers neighbourhood places in Oost, De Pijp and along the Amstel, where people come for a pub quiz, a billiard table or fifty Dutch beers on tap.

Places in this collection

  • Café De Sluyswacht — The house was built in the 1690s for the keeper of the St Anthoniesluis lock. It became a café after the lock stopped being used. It leans…
  • Café De Dokter — About 18 square metres, a few steps from Dam Square. A surgeon from the nearby hospital founded it in 1798 as a meeting place for doctors a…
  • Café Langereis — On the Amstel near Rembrandtplein, with a long list of beers on tap. It stays open until 03:00 on most nights and 04:00 at weekends.
  • Café Lowietje — Around the corner from the Lindengracht and Westerstraat since 1954, playing Tante Leen, Johnny Jordaan and Willy Alberti. Market traders s…
  • Dopey's Elixer — Billed as the oldest brown café in De Pijp: regulars at the bar and bar snacks on the side. It opens at 13:00 every day and has a terrace o…
  • De Stoof — A small café-bar on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal in the Red Light District, easy to spot by the neon on its front. Beer guides list it as a…
  • De Poort — A pub on the Haarlemmerdijk with a billiard table and football on a big screen. It opens at 11:00, earlier than most places on this list. O…
  • Papeneiland — A corner canal house with two step gables at the head of the Prinsengracht, dated to 1642. Inside are Delft tiles, with old paintings hung…
  • Café Gambrinus — Ask about brown cafés in this part of the city and Gambrinus is the name that comes up. There are dozens of beers on tap and in bottles, ma…
  • 't Vliegertje — A café-restaurant on Scheldestraat that has been a local brown café for about 30 years. Sparerib guides list it for its ribs. It opens at 1…
  • Café Koosje — A few steps from Artis zoo in the Plantagebuurt, and one of the city's best-known brown cafés. It sits on the Plantage Middenlaan, so it is…
  • Café 't Gasthuys — One Dutch guide sums it up as dark brown tables, red glass candle holders and panelling from long ago. It runs as an eetcafé on the Grimbur…
  • 't Loosje — A traditional brown café on the Nieuwmarkt. In summer its terraces spill out across the square and fill up. There is no wheelchair access.
  • Café de Wetering — A corner café behind a screen of vines, in a 17th-century canal house in the Spiegelkwartier antiques district. Regulars crowd the tiny dow…
  • De Oranjerie — A Belgian beer café on a side street off the Haarlemmerdijk. It has a high ceiling, Art Deco details and a wall covered in theatre posters.…
  • Café 't Smalle — The name means 'narrow'. Pieter Hoppe opened a liqueur distillery and tasting room here around 1780. The brass fixtures, wood panelling, me…
  • Café Hoppe — It has been on the Spui since 1670 and started out as a distillery, so jenever is still the main drink. The front is standing room only wit…
  • Café Kuijper — A local café in Oost that serves lunch in the afternoon and drinks in the evening. Most people come for the Tuesday pub quiz: win it and th…
  • Café Chris — It is usually counted as the oldest café in the Jordaan, said to have opened as a beer house in 1624. The story goes that builders on the W…
  • In 't Aepjen — The building at the top of the Zeedijk is one of the oldest wooden houses in the city, dated to 1475. The name means 'in the monkeys', afte…

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