One of my favorite ways to get to know a new city is a food tour. You get your steps in. You can usually cross off a few landmarks that don’t need more than a pass-by. You’ll learn a bit about the city and the local culture from your guide. And of course, you get a sampler of the local specialties!
I was recently in Amsterdam with my dad, and we embarked on a tasting adventure with Ollantay Food Tours. We met up with our group and our guide, Romain, at an easy-to-find spot near Rembrandtplein and across from Amsterdam’s Bloemenmarkt. Over the next 3 hours, Romain taught us to pronounce Gouda (hint: it’s not a soft G or a hard G), kept us from getting run over by the bikes, entertained us, walked the city with us, and, of course, fed us.
Our first two tastes came in the same location: a tosti—grilled cheese made with Gouda and ham—and a bitterballen. In case you are not familiar (I wasn’t!), a bitterballen is kind of like a gravy croquette. And it is delicious. Those so inclined were offered the chance to try a bit of jenever, the original “Dutch courage” and the ancestor of gin.
I didn’t realize until later how thoughtfully this first stop had been chosen. We were seated in a restaurant, which meant everyone had a chance to use the loo before we really got going. And the small group of tables made the stop a nice icebreaker, giving our group a chance to converse and introduce ourselves.
After our tostis, we headed back out and walked alongside the Bloemenmarkt to our second stop. This flower market is a series of open stalls that resemble greenhouses from the rear, “floating” on concrete barges.
It was very pretty and a good inspiration for Romain to tell us a bit about the history of tulips as one of Holland’s major exports. But as every stall looked to have virtually the same merchandise as the next one, and all of it targeted at tourists, I was happy to take in this landmark by walking past it on the way to our second tasting.
We stepped into the Henri Willig Cheese Museum for a short film with an overview of how the Willig cows are cared for. The pasture, the lovely new barns, the husbandry practices that let the cows choose whether or not they’d like to be milked and “relieve their udder pressure.” One member of our tour wondered about cows who might decide that they never wanted to be milked, and was quickly told by the mothers of the group that udder pressure made the existence of such a cow very unlikely. After the tour, we headed downstairs to taste some cheese.
Dad and I didn’t realize until later in the day, walking back from the tour to elsewhere, that Henri Willig cheese shops are a bit like Dunkin Donuts in Massachusetts, or Starbucks in Seattle. They are everywhere, and especially everywhere that a tourist might be. It seems likely that locals do buy the cheese as well, but the ubiquity of Henri Willig shops in tourist stops became a running joke between Dad and me.
What you need to know is that while every Henri Willig shop doesn’t have a cheese museum, they do all routinely put out a variety of cheeses for tasting. Whether or not you’re on a tour, you can stop in and try out a few different flavors of Gouda. If you have a favorite that you’d like to haul home with you, I can tell you from experience that the selection in the airport is much more limited than what you’ll find in the stores.
On the way to our next stop, we paused to briefly visit Amsterdam’s Begijnhof, or Beguinage. Like the Beguinage in Bruges, availability of the apartments in Amsterdam’s Begijnhof is still restricted to single women who must find other housing if they marry.
Within the Begijnhof is the oldest house in Amsterdam. Wooden houses like the one in black below were repeatedly destroyed by fire before brick and stone became the standard building materials. There’s also a lovely small chapel; relatively unassuming from the outside, as it was in use during the period after the Reformation when open practice of Catholicism was forbidden in the Netherlands.
Resuming the tour, we stopped for herring and kibbeling …
Stroopwafels from the oldest bakery in Amsterdam …
Frites, consumed while sitting on a low stone wall looking out over the canal …
And a few other tastes before finishing up with apple pie at the Café Hegeraad.
Dad and I had a great afternoon, and here’s why this is one of the best food tours I’ve ever taken. First, a food tour isn’t just about the stops and the food, but also about your guide. Romain was funny, engaging, and clearly knowledgeable about both the food history and the cultural history of the city. And he was prepared with water, hand sanitizer, and whatever else the group might reasonably expect to need throughout the tour. Ollantay does employ other guides, but Romain is the owner and mentioned that he chose carefully when expanding beyond his original one-man operation.
I want to raise a glass to the exceptional pacing. As a food tour veteran, I carefully wrapped the second half of my tosti in a napkin to avoid getting too full at the first stop. But that turned out to be unnecessary. The size of the portions and the length of the tour were very well managed so that we finished full, but not stuffed.
Food Tours do change over time or with shop hours, and there’s no guarantee that you’d have the same stops and tastes as we did. But I mentioned earlier how thoughtfully the first stop was chosen, and that level of careful design was present throughout. A combination of multiple tastings in a single stop, as we had with the tostis and bitterballen, meant that we had a wide variety without feeling like we were rushing from place to place. And the locations Romain chose didn’t just have great food; they were often beautiful or interesting to look at as we ate. Whether or not the stops are the same, I’m confident this would continue to be true.
