The pearl of Kalverstraat

Spending a day shopping on Kalverstraat? Then, for lunch, you were quickly limited to McDonald’s or Bakker Bart. That is, until I gave you this golden tip.

Okay, you have to veer off a few metres, because this lunch pearl is located in Taksteeg. A narrow street roughly in the middle of Kalverstraat, which Amsterdam students probably know because they used to get their JoHo summaries here. Right next door is Gartine, one of the best breakfast and lunch spots the city has to offer.

Not standard

Here you won’t find the standard breakfast/lunch menu. You don’t eat an ordinary sandwich here, but proper dishes. A herb cake with roasted garlic and cream cheese cream, beetroot, poppy seeds and salad, for example. Or Swedish polarbröd with smoked salmon tartare, sweet-and-sour courgette and basil mayonnaise. And yes, it is a lunch spot, so naturally there is also a cheese sandwich on the menu, but this one comes with roasted nuts, tarragon dressing and horseradish butter on sourdough toast.

Not complicated

It may sound like a list of very complicated things, but believe me, nothing here is far-fetched or complicated. It is all simply fucking delicious and prepared with a great deal of love. If you are stuck in your eggs Benedict ways, you can thankfully order those too. But with eggs from their own adopted chickens. Cute, right?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmMrfOMA0y4/?

Chocolate for breakfast

At breakfast, you eat all the classics, but with a twist. Scrambled eggs with herbs from their own herb garden, for example, or pancakes with lemon curd, cream cheese and apricots soaked in almond syrup, or sugar-bread French toast. Do you prefer yoghurt in the morning? Then go for the farmhouse yoghurt with poached pear, roasted coconut, oat flakes and white chocolate. Who says you can’t eat chocolate for breakfast? Cake is allowed too, by the way; you choose it from the large refrigerator standing in the middle of the restaurant.

Be sure to reserve

It may sound so delicious that you think you’ll pay a fortune here. Fortunately, that’s not the case. All dishes cost between €7 and €10 and are more than filling enough. Once, when I was hungry, the two of us ordered three dishes and couldn’t finish them by a long shot. Thank God for the doggy bag. Rock-bottom prices in a prime location? Unfortunately, that does mean you need to make a reservation in advance. The restaurant is about as narrow as the alley it is located in, so there isn’t much space. That does make it extra cosy.

Gartine
Taksteeg 7
Amsterdam