Café Nieuw Amsterdam

Café Nieuw Amsterdam is quiet excellence in bistro form: crisp toasted sandwiches that remind you why classics endure, steak frites without fuss, cocktails mixed properly, and on Sundays a roast — tender lamb, all the trimmings — that British visitors rank alongside home. Steps from Central Station on the Haarlemmerstraat, it makes an ideal first or last meal in the city, and walk-ins usually work outside peak hours. Nothing here chases trends; everything is simply done well, which in this location is rarer than it sounds.