8 Places to Eat and Drink in the Spaarndammerbuurt, Amsterdam, Netherlands

It was early 2007, and I’d just hired a makelaar to help me buy my first apartment in Amsterdam. I was considering Oud-West (I’d been living near the Overtoom for the past nine months or so), de Baarsjes perhaps, or maybe the Plantagebuurt. Back then, I’d never even heard of the skinny pizza-slice of land on the other side of the train tracks from the Westerpark. It was halfway to the dreaded Amsterdam Noord! I mean, it looked kind of central - so close to Amsterdam Centraal Station and the Jordaan - but who ever went north of the tracks? And then one crisp, bright February morning, I ventured up to the unheard-of Spaarndammerbuurt and stood in the middle of a still-being-renovated apartment with an open-plan kitchen (and this back in the day when every old building in Amsterdam featured a narrow galley kitchen off a chilly hallway)… I fell in love.

Back then, I’d never even heard of the skinny pizza-slice of land on the other side of the train tracks from the Westerpark. It was halfway to the dreaded Amsterdam Noord!

Five months later, I moved in and started exploring my new local neighbourhood. There were a couple of dodgy old-man bars, a post office and (thank god!) an Albert Heijn had just opened at the top of the street. But that was about it. When I wanted to go out in the evening, I biked to the Noordermarkt - it was the closest area with any kind of restaurants or bars. Even the Westergasfabriek was at that time home to Pacific Parc and not a lot else. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).