Pickled herring and a “kroket” sandwich: the icons of Amsterdam’s food culture
From North Sea herring to Indonesian food in Chinese restaurants: the exhibition “Amsterdam Eats” serves up the history of Amsterdam’s food culture in nine dishes. It turns out that the people of Amsterdam excel in simple snacks.
So what exactly is typical Amsterdam food? Perhaps Amsterdam pickles, thinks culinary historian Charlotte Kleyn. The pickled gherkins and onions that Jewish Amsterdam residents sold on the street were not only sour and salty, but also sweet, which distinguishes Amsterdam pickles from other pickles in the world.
The exhibition Amsterdam Eet (Amsterdam Eats) at the Allard Pierson shows 750 years of Amsterdam’s food culture through nine dishes. Kleyn compiled the exhibition using historical cookbooks, menus, paintings and photographs from the Allard Pierson collection and others. The oldest Amsterdam cookbook from 1617 is on display, as well as cooking videos on TikTok by contemporary influencers.
Herring for breakfast
Many of the dishes eaten in Amsterdam could also be found in other Dutch cities, says Kleyn. “We have chosen to select the dishes that tell something about the city.” The common thread? “When it comes to food, Amsterdam is a sponge. The city attracts all kinds of influences, but nothing really originates here.”
This begins in the city’s “year of birth” in 1275. At the time, Amsterdam was just a hamlet in a marshy area. There was little food available, except for some fish in the IJ. Yet it was never an isolated fishing village, according to Kleyn. “The city was in an ideal location for trade. Everything that we have eaten here over the centuries has come here through trade. From herring from the North Sea to spices from Asia and potatoes from South America.”
In the Middle Ages, herring was the mainstay of the diet. The herring was caught in the North Sea, pickled and then resold in Amsterdam. It is said that Amsterdam’s prosperity was built on herring bones. It is on the menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But the rich also eat it. For example, the oldest Amsterdam cookbook contains a recipe for pot pie with pickled herring, sugar, currants, plums, cloves and black pepper.
French influences
Halfway through the seventeenth century, exotic spices in the kitchen made way for more indigenous ones such as chervil and bay leaves. French cuisine made its entrance in Amsterdam. Whereas sauces had previously been thickened with breadcrumbs, from now on this was done with a roux, a mixture of fat and flour from French cuisine.
Amsterdam dinner tables also undergo a metamorphosis: all dishes used to be served at the same time, but from the course of the nineteenth century onwards, the service à la russe, or the Russian way of serving – also of French origin – appears and the food is served per dish. Only then does the menu appear, to let diners know what courses are still to come.
Five million steaks
When Amsterdam began to grow again at the end of the 1800s after a period of stagnation, many restaurants opened, another French invention. There had already been inns and soup kitchens in the city before, but the institution of the “restaurant” as a place where you go to eat to be seen only really came into being then. In Amsterdam, the Krasnapolsky, the American Hotel and the former Riche restaurant on the Rokin appear.
Steak appears on the menu everywhere. Sometimes very chic, with elaborate sauces. Or “ordinary”, with fried potatoes as at Hotel Die Port van Cleve, a more Amsterdam way of serving. Each guest is also given a card with a number to accompany their steak, at Die Port van Cleve, that has sold more than 5 million steaks since 1874.
Toilet bowls
Yet it was the Jewish residents of Amsterdam who really left their mark on the city’s food culture. The Jews of Amsterdam – who before the Second World War made up about 10 percent of the city’s population – brought the Eastern European tradition of pickling vegetables to the city. They sold pickled onions, gherkins, boiled eggs, herring and liverwurst on the street from carts. These were kept in clean toilet buckets to wash yourself with, to keep out the strong smell. “That Amsterdam pickle is perhaps the only truly typical Amsterdam thing,” thinks Kleyn. “The Amsterdam pickle has a taste that distinguishes itself from other pickles in the world. Besides sour and salty, it is also sweet, sweeter than Eastern European pickles.
After the Second World War, Kesbeke, a Catholic company from the province of Zeeland, stepped into the gap left by Amsterdam’s Jews. Only “Van de Leeuw zuurwaren”, a shop in Amsterdam-Zuid, is still of Jewish origin.
Croquette sandwich
The Amsterdam sandwich culture also originated from Jewish butchers who started selling their sliced meat on sandwiches at the end of the 1800s. The “halfom” sandwich with pickled beef and cooked liver is so popular that special sandwich shops were opened for it. In 1958, this “Amsterdam sandwich” even gained world fame at the world exhibition in Brussels.
The croquette, which first appeared in France in 1698 and was also served to King William I in 1852, also became known as a “kroket” among ordinary mortals, and fits also nicely on a sandwich, as discovered by pastry chef Febo and eatery Van Dobben.
Later, sandwich shops in nightlife areas such as Leidseplein and Rembrandtplein mix with the vending machines. In 1937, the shop closing law gives the final push: croquettes and sandwiches are sold in vending machines, which we still know today from Febo, where shopkeepers can sell on after closing time.
Nasi goreng
With the arrival of migrants in the city, more and more eateries are appearing. From Yugoslavian to Italian and Korean: with the Chinese-Indian restaurant highlighted in the exhibition. “That is a remarkable combination that you only find in the Netherlands,” says Kleyn. Chinese restaurants were already present in Amsterdam before the war, but after the war, Dutch people of Indonesian descent also came to the city in search of the flavours of their homeland. “Chinese restaurants then also started to put Indonesian dishes on the menu. Nasi goreng is not Chinese at all, but Indonesian, meaning “fried rice” in Malay. There is also nothing Chinese about sambal and peanut sauce.”
The exhibition Amsterdam Eats. A history in dishes is open from Friday 11 April to Sunday 7 September 2025 at Allard Pierson. The exhibition is also in English.
