Amsterdam coffee guide: flat whites on the canals

First, the word. In Amsterdam a “coffeeshop” sells cannabis, and the search results for coffee shops in Amsterdam are full of menus that have nothing to do with beans. The places in this guide are coffee bars, koffiebars, espresso bars and roastery cafés: the specialty coffee scene that has grown across the city from the Jordaan to Bos en Lommer. If you want a flat white or a filter coffee from a named farm, these are the places.

We have grouped them by the roaster behind the counter.

LOT61 Coffee Roasters, Oud-West

LOT61’s line is “Born in Sydney. Raised in Brooklyn. Roasting in Amsterdam”, and its Oud-West café is where the Amsterdam part began. The corner window, the green benches outside and the bags lined up on the sill make it one of the city’s most photographed coffee bars. The coffee comes from the company’s own roastery in the west of the city, where it has roasted on a Probat for close to a decade. There are two more LOT61 cafés, one in Oud-Zuid and one inside the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel at Amsterdam Centraal station.

Back to Black, near the Rijksmuseum and in Amsterdam-West

Noortje and Inge opened the first Back to Black in July 2014, a small coffee bar on a quiet side street near the Rijksmuseum, and began roasting their own coffee early the next year. Today the company runs a roastery and bakery in the western port and a second bar in Amsterdam-West. Every cake is baked in-house. Both bars take no reservations, limit laptops on weekdays and ban them at weekends. A cat called Binkie appears on the website.

Friedhats FUKU, Bos en Lommer

Friedhats is a micro-roastery that buys directly from producers and trusted European importers, and FUKU, opened in September 2018 in Bos en Lommer, is its first and only café. The promise is “good coffee, nice people, and sometimes even natural wine”. Nearly every Friedhats coffee is available as filter or espresso, alongside competition-grade “Super Special” lots, experimental processes and geishas. There are cakes, croissants and house-made granola by day, and a monthly wine night.

Bocca Coffee, the canal belt

Bocca calls itself the pioneer of specialty coffee in the Netherlands: the company has roasted since 2001, is a certified B Corp and launched the country’s first verified True Price coffee. The roastery is in Dronten. The espresso bar in the canal belt brings the whole catalogue into the city and doubles as Bocca’s School of Coffee, where it runs workshops.

Scandinavian Embassy, De Pijp

Scandinavian Embassy does not roast. It describes itself as an ambassador for Scandinavian roasters and serves coffees from The Coffee Collective, Koppi and Drop Coffee among others, in an intimate Scandinavian setting beside the Sarphatipark in De Pijp. The food is the other half of the idea, with healthy breakfasts, lunches and the pairing of coffee with pastries. In 2022 it opened a bakery and shop in Amsterdam-Zuid.

Rum Baba, Oost and the Jordaan

Rum Baba is an independent roastery run by Jeroen, Lusan and a team with fifteen years in specialty coffee. Rum Baba East, near the Oosterpark, is the largest site, with a shop, brew bar and a bakery at the back that makes the house marble cake. The second shop, on the edge of the Jordaan, is smaller, a shop and brew bar with free monthly workshops. The roastery moves to Haarlem on 1 November 2026; the shops are unaffected.

White Label Coffee, West and Noord

White Label has stopped splitting its coffees into filter and espresso roasts: every coffee is roasted one way, to show what it calls each coffee’s natural diversity. The original café is White Label West, in Amsterdam-West. White Label Noord serves the other side of the IJ, and a sister café, Native, is in Haarlem.

Uncommon, near the Vondelpark

Uncommon roasts its own coffee, visits origin every year and rarely keeps a coffee on the menu for more than six months. The kitchen is plant-based and seasonal, from warm oats to kimchi toast, and the café takes walk-ins only. Across the street, Uncommon Bar bakes with foraged and fermented ingredients by day and serves small plates and natural wine on Friday and Saturday evenings.

What you need to know about Amsterdam specialty coffee

What are coffee houses called in Amsterdam? A koffiebar, koffiehuis or espressobar serves coffee. A coffeeshop, one word, is licensed to sell cannabis. Specialty cafés use “coffee bar” or “roastery” on their signs, and so does this guide.

What is the difference between a coffeeshop and a café? A café in Dutch is often a brown bar serving beer and bitterballen. The coffeeshop sells cannabis and is usually not the place for a good cup of coffee. For specialty coffee, look for the roaster’s name on the window.

Which coffee bars roast their own beans? LOT61, Back to Black, Friedhats, Bocca, Rum Baba, White Label and Uncommon all roast; Scandinavian Embassy serves Scandinavian roasters instead.

Where do the bakeries come in? Back to Black and Rum Baba bake in their own bakeries, Scandinavian Embassy pairs coffee with Nordic pastry, FUKU does cakes and granola, and Uncommon runs a full plant-based kitchen.