Guides Amsterdam
There was a time when Amsterdam did not just have a culinary identity, it had a Jewish one. To locals the city was not only Amsterdam, it was Mokum, a Yiddish word from the Hebrew makom, meaning place or safe haven.
Before 1940, over 100,000 Jewish residents lived here. You can still read it in the street names, like Jodenbreestraat, the Jewish Broad Street, where vendors once sold fresh bread, herring and traditional baked goods. Walk down it today and you will not smell challah or hear Yiddish bartering. The Holocaust took almost all of it. When it comes to the food that helped build this city, they simply do not Mokum like they used to.
One thing worth clearing up first, because it often gets muddled. The old Dutch-Jewish food of Amsterdam and the Middle Eastern food you find around the city today are not the same thing. In recent years a number of good Middle Eastern restaurants have opened here, some by recent immigrants from Israel, and they have brought dishes like hummus and shakshuka to the canals (we cover those in our best hummus guide). That cooking is its own tradition and well worth seeking out, but it is not a continuation of old Mokum. Dutch-Jewish food was a separate, quiet, centuries-old kitchen of its own: barrel pickles, Friday challah, pear kugel, gemberbol. This guide is about what survives of that.
The spaces once filled by Jewish bakeries now hold Surinamese, Moroccan, Turkish and Indonesian kitchens too, and that is the natural life of a great city. Celebrating the newer communities takes nothing from the past. It is still all right to look at the canals and miss the tastes that used to define them.
If you want to skip the generic tourist spots and find the rooted, resilient flavours of Dutch-Jewish history, these are the places that still hold a piece of it.
One note before the list: not every place here is run by Jewish owners today. Some are, like the kosher bakeries out in Buitenveldert. Others simply keep a piece of the old Mokum alive through a recipe, a location, or the language of the market. What they share is that spirit, not a certificate.
- Where
- Vrijheidslaan 78, Rivierenbuurt
- Hours
- Limited days, usually Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Check before you go
- Price
- €
- Buy
- the zure bom (sour bomb), sweet-sour Amsterdamse zuur (pickled onions), loose gherkins from the barrel
The quintessential Amsterdam pickle, the zure bom and the sweet-sour onion, is a Jewish invention. In the 1800s Jewish street vendors sold them from carts as a way to preserve food without refrigeration. De Leeuw is the last remaining pickle shop of authentic Jewish origin in the city, salting cucumbers in old barrels to a recipe it has never shared since around 1850. Stepping in to get a pickle straight from the barrel is the closest thing left to old Mokum. We cover it in more depth, alongside the rest of the city's specialist shops, in our specialty food shops guide.
Find on Google Maps- Where
- Professor J.H. Bavincklaan 5, Amstelveen, in the kosher food court
- Price
- €€
- Order
- broodje pekelvlees (warm salt-cured beef), or the broodje halfom (salt beef and beef liver together)
- Note
- kosher and under rabbinical supervision, so no butter on a meat roll and closed for Shabbat
This is the dish that still tastes like the old Jewish Amsterdam street food. From the 1880s, kosher butchers and fishmongers turned their counters into the city's first sandwich shops, and by the 1930s a broodje pekelvlees, a soft white roll packed with warm salt-cured beef, was on half the corners in town. The classic order is the broodje halfom, "half and half", salt beef and cooked beef liver in one roll with white pepper and salt and never any butter, since a kosher meat roll keeps meat and dairy apart. Sal Meijer is the legendary name behind it: it closed for years, then came back under rabbinical supervision, cooking to the original recipes. If you want it in the centre instead, Broodje Mokum on the Rozengracht has served the halfom for decades, though it is a regular Amsterdam shop and not a kosher one. Same family tree: osseworst, the coarse cold-smoked raw beef sausage you find in every Amsterdam butcher, grew from this Jewish-Amsterdam kitchen too, made of beef because pork was off the table.
Find on Google Maps- Where
- Kastelenstraat 69, Buitenveldert
- Hours
- Sun 10:00-16:30, Mon-Thu 8:30-18:00, Fri 8:30-16:00. Closed Saturday for Shabbat
- Price
- €€
- Order
- fresh-baked challah on Friday morning, rugelach, kosher provisions
Tucked into Buitenveldert, the neighbourhood where much of Amsterdam's remaining Jewish community lives, Rimon is part bakery, part supermarket, and a real local institution under Beth Din supervision. Come on a Friday morning for fresh, braided challah in time for Shabbat. It sells out, so go early. Unpretentious, lively and completely the real thing.
Find on Google Maps- Where
- Nieuwe Amstelstraat 1, inside the Jewish Museum
- Price
- €€
- Order
- pear kugel (stewed pears in sweet almond pastry), gemberbol (ginger pastry), Dutch-Jewish fishcakes
- Note
- food is dairy or parve; ingredients come from suppliers under rabbinical supervision, but the cafe itself holds no full kashrut certificate
Do not let the word museum put you off. This is one of the only places left where you can try historic Dutch-Jewish dishes that have all but disappeared from commercial menus. The gemberbol is the one to understand: a coiled, sticky sugar pastry shot through with candied ginger, a recipe Sephardic Jews carried up from Portugal in the late 1500s and made their own here, which is why it counts as both a Jewish delicacy and a typical old Amsterdam treat. The pear kugel is softer Ashkenazi comfort baking, stewed pears in sweet almond pastry. If strict kashrut matters to you, there is a separate sealed case of meals prepared under rabbinical supervision. The simplest way in is with a museum ticket as part of a visit to the Jewish Cultural Quarter.
Find on Google Maps- Where
- Kastelenstraat 261, Buitenveldert
- Price
- €€
- Order
- kosher provisions, Dutch-Jewish specialities, a sandwich from the corner to take away
A legendary Amsterdam name that has supplied the city with kosher food for generations. Where older institutions like Sal Meijer have closed over the years, Mouwes has survived by adapting. It is the place to pick up traditional kosher provisions, specialised Dutch-Jewish items, or a sandwich to go. It stands for the quiet resilience of the community's food purveyors.
Find on Google Maps- Where
- Ten Katestraat (Oud-West) · Dapperstraat (Oost)
- Price
- €
- Listen for
- gein (fun), bajes (jail), gabber (friend) and other market slang, all Yiddish in origin
There is no signpost for this one. If you want the feel of old Mokum, go to the Ten Katemarkt or the Dappermarkt and listen to the older Amsterdam vendors selling fish, cheese and produce. The dry, sharp, self-deprecating humour and the specific slang they use is Yiddish to the core. The original Jewish vendors may be gone, but they permanently changed the dialect of Amsterdam's food markets. Next time you buy a pickle or tear into a piece of bread, take a second for the Mokum that was.
Find on Google MapsWhere can I buy traditional Amsterdam Jewish pickles?
De Leeuw Zuurwaren at Vrijheidslaan 78 in the Rivierenbuurt, running since 1850 and the last dedicated sour shop of Jewish origin in the city. Buy the zure bom and the sweet-sour Amsterdamse zuur from the barrel. Limited days, usually Thursday, Friday and Sunday, so check first.
Where can I get fresh challah in Amsterdam?
Rimon Deli & Bakery at Kastelenstraat 69 in Buitenveldert bakes fresh challah for Shabbat. Go on a Friday morning, as it sells out. Mouwes at Kastelenstraat 261 also stocks kosher bread. Both close Saturday for Shabbat.
Where can I eat kosher Dutch-Jewish food in central Amsterdam?
The cafe inside the Jewish Museum at Nieuwe Amstelstraat 1 serves historic Dutch-Jewish dishes such as pear kugel and gemberbol. The food is dairy or parve and ingredients come from suppliers under rabbinical supervision, though the cafe itself does not hold a full kashrut certificate.
Was Amsterdam's Jewish food anything like New York's?
Related, but not the same thing. Both grew from the same deli instinct: salt-cured beef, barrel pickles, a sandwich culture and a shared Yiddish, so a broodje halfom is a clear cousin of a New York pastrami on rye. But Amsterdam's community was centuries older and carried a deep Sephardic, Portuguese layer that New York never really had, which is why a ginger bolus has no New York equivalent. Amsterdam's Jewish food also dissolved into the wider city, osseworst and barrel pickles became Amsterdam food rather than only Jewish food, where New York's stayed a distinct Ashkenazi cuisine that kept growing. The starkest difference is the saddest one: New York's tradition survived and grew, while Amsterdam's was almost entirely destroyed in the Holocaust.
Why is Amsterdam called Mokum?
Mokum is a Yiddish nickname for Amsterdam, from the Hebrew makom, meaning place or safe haven. It comes from the era when the city had one of Europe's largest Jewish communities, whose Yiddish still survives in market slang like gein, bajes and gabber.
