I’ll preface this article with a huge disclaimer: I worked for a food tours company for three years. I didn’t actually lead the tours, but I managed all the editorial content creation, social media and PR across multiple cities. During that time, I took a lot of food tours. Not just here in Amsterdam, but in Prague, Rome, London, Paris, Istanbul, Chicago – you name it.
Despite the fact that this tour-taking started for work, it was a habit that stuck. I realised that following a food tour (or a history tour, or any other guided experience for that matter) is not just “something for tourists”. Well, ok, it is. But not in a bad way. It’s actually the best possible preparation for the rest of your trip: not only do you find out heaps of information about your destination. You also have access to someone who knows the place – its sights, sounds, tastes and smells – inside out: your tour guide. They want to share their knowledge with you. They want you to have the best possible experience of their city. Use them to your advantage!
5 of the Best Amsterdam Food Tours
With all this in mind, I’ve compiled a short, curated list of what I consider to be the best tours and experiences in Amsterdam – run by people who genuinely know and love the city as much as I do. If you want to do your homework before you arrive, read my primer on traditional Dutch food and drinks.
Eating Europe
Eating Europe started out in Rome, then branched out into London, followed by Amsterdam (and a host of other European cities after that) – so they certainly know what they’re doing. And for their Amsterdam food tour, they came up with something very distinctive: a culinary walking tour combined with a private, one-hour canal cruise on a beautifully restored wooden salon boat.
The tour is based in the Jordaan neighbourhood, which is already charming, historic and postcard-worthy to start with. You’ll visit a local cheese shop for aged Gouda, a fishmonger for herring and kibbeling, a centuries-old brown café for Amsterdam’s best apple pie, and a few other stops besides. Then the waterborne portion: you board your private salon boat, crispy bitterballen and jenever appear, and you spend an hour gliding past the 17th-century canal houses of the Prinsengracht, Amstel and Herengracht. It’s the kind of experience that feels definitively Amsterdam, and would be hard to replicate anywhere else.
Hungry Birds
Hungry Birds has a strong claim to being Amsterdam’s OG food tour – it’s been running since 2013, making it the oldest food tour company in the city (as far as I know). Founded and run by women (the guides are known collectively as the “Mother Birds”), the emphasis is firmly on people and stories as much as food.
The flagship Original Street Food Tour takes you through De Pijp – one of Amsterdam’s most vibrant and multicultural neighbourhoods – tasting Dutch classics (herring, stroopwafels, bitterballen) alongside the international influences that make De Pijp’s food scene so interesting (Indonesian, Surinamese, you name it). Second-time visitors might also be interested in Hungry Birds’ alternative food tour through the East side of Amsterdam: it’s my neighbourhood, and they’ve picked the same culinary enclaves (Dappermarkt, Javastraat) that I would’ve picked.
Dutch Experiences
The newest addition to this list, and one that takes a different approach to everything else here: rather than walking you around the city, Dutch Experiences brings you to a beautiful canal-side location on the Keizersgracht and takes you on a metaphorical journey through Dutch history and food culture without you ever having to put your coat back on.
Over the course of the experience – called A Taste of Holland – you’ll work your way through 12 Dutch food specialities paired with jenever, beer, wine or soft drinks, while being guided through the history of the Netherlands from the earliest settlements to the modern day. It’s part history lesson, part tasting menu, part convivial afternoon out, and it’s particularly good value for a rainy Amsterdam day when the idea of trailing round the streets has its limits. It’s run by the same people behind Greenwood’s, one of Amsterdam’s most popular brunch spots – so they know what they’re doing when it comes to feeding people well.
Girl with a Pearl Travel
Lauren Comiteau is a New Yorker who swapped New Amsterdam for the original some two decades ago. Since then she’s been covering the city as a journalist, which means she knows Amsterdam not just as a place to live but as a place to report on: its market traders, its museum directors, its chefs and its historians. That journalistic curiosity is exactly what she brings to her tours.
Her Albert Cuyp Market & de Pijp tour is the one to book for a food-focused morning. The Albert Cuyp is Europe’s largest street market, its 260 stalls selling everything from cheese and herring to fabric and flowers, and Lauren navigates it like the local she is – stopping to taste, chat and introduce you to some of the third-generation sellers whose families have been here for decades. (Full disclosure: Lauren and I have collaborated on a Dutch cheese and wine tasting that you’ll also find on her website.)
Amsterdam and You
I’m including Amsterdam and You not as a food tour per se, but as a general walking tour of the city that makes a fantastic starting point for your trip. It’s run by Jerry Goldberg: a name many will recognise as the person behind Amsterdam Calling, the long-running YouTube video series documenting life in the city.
Jerry’s three-hour tour takes you through the historic old city centre, across canals and through the Jordaan, combining the big-ticket sights (Dam Square, the Anne Frank House, Canal Belt) with the hidden spots that only someone who’s spent years filming the city for fun would know. The groups are small and the storytelling is excellent. By the end, you’ll understand Amsterdam in a way that no guidebook or canal cruise can replicate.
