Westerpark Amsterdam – All our local tips

This modern, classy restaurant has despite it’s high ceilings a very pleasant atmosphere. It may be a bit further away from the city centre, but Amsterdam’s new upcoming Westergas-area is definitely worth visiting nowadays.

Café Restaurant Amsterdam is situated in an old engine room. Old control panels and engines needed to make place for some parts of the restaurant but everything else is still there, for example an enormous engine.

The combination of good quality food, reasonable prices and the original setting is the most appealing factor. Service is very friendly and helpful.

The crowd is very diverse, varying from families with kids, large groups, celebs, and expats; a great atmosphere no doubt! Although, for a nice and quiet romantic diner…this may not be the place to be.

Here you probably won’t find students or tourists, but it has been a great success among locals.  In summer you can sit outside on the terrace, in winter it’s overwhelming enough to eat inside, due to the great design of the main room.

Note: It’s smart to make reservations in the weekend!

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Café Restaurant Amsterdam | Restaurants (French) | Main from € 11.00
Watertorenplein 6 | Westerpark | +31206822666
Sun – Thu 10:30 – 24:00, Fri – Sat 10:30 – 01:00

Monday night is film night in De Nieuwe Anita, a cozy little bar that used to be run by squatters. The movies are presented by an American dude named Jeffrey Babcock, who’s been a part of the sub-cultural scene of Amsterdam for quite some time.

Not only does he select those hidden, twisted gems that you would not find yourself, he also drags you into the world of the filmmaker. By mixing factual information with juicy details about the often quite eccentric lives of the directors, he creates the right context for the viewer to experience the film in, in all its richness.

If you need explaining afterwards, or want to know more about the filmmaker, you can strike up a conversation with the host, who’s probably hanging around having a beer in the living room like café as well.

The films at De Nieuwe Anita are not for the faint-hearted, but rather for those who like to be stunned, baffled or shocked. If you are open to it they can offer a momentary escape to a realm that can be perverted but beautiful, or terrifyingly philosophical.

Cinemanita takes place every Monday night at 20.30. Be there at least half an hour in advance, as the seats are usually quickly filled.

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Cinemanita Nieuwe Anita | Art & culture, Bars, Cinemas | Ticket € 2.50
Frederik Hendrikstraat 111 | Westerpark | +31641503512
Mon 20:30

This restaurant was opened in October 2008, so it’s pretty new. The neighbourhood is in a multicultural community in Bos en Lommer. Great to see more trendy restaurants coming up here!

They have small tables with a bar in the middle. Every first Wednesday of the month they have a new menu.

The staff is great and the food is fine. We had salmon and Boeuff Bourgignon, both dishes were prepared well. The carrot soup did not taste like carrots, but was nice as well.

The entire atmosphere is relaxed and you feel welcome here!

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Luim | Bars, Restaurants (French) | Main course from € 10.50
Admiraal de Ruyterweg 404 | Westerpark | +31206889986
Sun – Thu 11:30 – 01:00, Fri – Sat 11:30 – 02:00

At the beginning of the twentieth century Amsterdam was, like many major European cities, under the spell of progress. The first changes that took place were legislative: in 1901 the government passed the Housing-Law. The quality of the housing for low-income families had to be increased drastically. Twenty years after the finishing of the poorly constructed neighborhood “De Pijp”, some new blocks for the working man were built by graduates from the Amsterdamse School (Amsterdam School of architecture), most notoriously by Michel de Klerk.

The blocks are tucked away at the border of the city. In the Spaarndammer neighborhood (Spaarndammerbuurt), above the Westerpark, you will find three big complexes that can rightly be described as palaces for the working man. They are worth visiting.

The neighborhood is nothing more than a residential area, yet the buildings you find there are reminiscent of Gaudi, created with unbridled imagination. Entire blocks flow into a whole that is far more organic than you will find in the Art Nouveau cityscapes of Budapest, Paris or Brussels. Especially the block in which “Museum ‘t Schip” (a museum about the Amsterdamse School) is located, seems to have been cast out of stone, rather than constructed by piling bricks on top of each other.

Go there if you want to be surprised by stunning architecture. Bear in mind that the buildings were foremost meant to provide residence to people with little money, and that they are still doing so. This is applied art at its finest.

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Spaarndammerbuurt | Art & culture | Museum € 2.50
Spaarndammerplantsoen 140 | Westerpark | +31204182885
18:00 – 01:00 daily

Last weekend it was very cold, but sunny and I thought: let’s go out to walk in the park and drink a cup of coffee.

I parked my bike at the start and walked ahead the petting farm. A lot of children over there and a small playground. Nice spots for a picnic in the summer and jog in the winter.

I walked along the stream and since the coffee place was overcrowded, I headed back to my bike. A lane with trees on both sides made me feel like I was not in Amsterdam. At the end I thought, just go left into the field. I should have worn my booths, but it was really nice. See the children play above, this speaks for itself…

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Westerpark | Relaxing | Free
Westerpark | Westerpark
24 hours daily

New interior, with extremely good food. Nice staff, and although a little bit out of the way in the western part of Amsterdam, it´s worth the detour.

The pizza´s are great. One of my favourites is the Pizza YamYam: a thin crusted pizza, with a truffle paste and after baking decorated with fresh ingredients like rocket, tomato, Prosciuto, Artichokes, Mozzarella di Buffalo & Parmigiano.

If you start with some small appetizers, don´t forget the Melanzane, and the fennel salami. But actually all the antipasti are great. Nice part of this dinner is the casual price. So including taxi fare, it´s still a bargain for a nice evening in a Local Amsterdam Trattoria.

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YAM YAM | Restaurants (Italian) | Bottle wine € 12.50
Frederik Hendrikstraat 88-90 | Westerpark | +31206815097
Tue – Sun 18:00 – 23:30