Great Food at Amsterdam's Coffee and Jazz Cafe

Restaurant on Utrechtsestraat Serves Coffee, Great Indonesian Food

Aug 13, 2008

If you like your spicy food with a mellow soundtrack, Coffee and Jazz shouldn't be missed. Throw in an eccentric owner, and you have an unforgettable culinary experience.

Coffee and Jazz is a tiny, unassuming restaurant on Amsterdam’s Utrechtsestraat, a quaint street full of independent clothes, book and music stores that runs at right angles to bustling Rembrandt Square. As the name suggests, this is the place to go for a good cup of coffee drunk to the accompaniment of mellow jazz sounds. What is not immediately obvious from the name is that Coffee and Jazz also sells excellent Indonesian food served by an eccentric Dutchman.

An Amsterdam Institution

Coffee and Jazz opened more than a decade ago and in that time both it and the owner have become something of an Amsterdam institution. Dressed in a polka dot shirt and sunglasses, with slightly dishevelled shoulder-length hair, Rene Volker is not your average host. In fact, he originally trained as a graphic designer. “But my wife is Indonesian,” he explains, “and I got into jazz through my father, so this restaurant is really the combination of those two people.”

His wife, Peggy, does most of the cooking, and although he has never been to Indonesia himself, because he has a fear of flying, he is in charge of the saté. This is one of the restaurant’s signature dishes and an Indonesian classic of strips of chicken threaded onto skewers, cooked over coals and served with a spicy peanut sauce.

Outstanding Reviews

Coffee and Jazz has been reviewed on Dutch restaurant websites and in several tourist guides and receives, almost without exception, outstanding reviews. In addition to the saté, the restaurant is renowned for its fruit shakes, soto (a clear soup, served with meats such as chicken or lamb and rice) and rijsttafel or rice table. A concept introduced by the Dutch colonists in Indonesia, the rice table is a lavish meal comprising a whole range of dishes served in a single sitting. After Indonesia’s independence in 1945, the rice table all but disappeared but is still popular in Holland.

Volker himself, however, is often described as a 'rare snijboon,' a delightful Dutch expression that translates literally as 'a strange string bean,' and what the English would call a funny fish.

He is pretty nonchalant about the description. “I can be a bit crazy sometimes, yes,” he agrees, “but the customers play a part as well. The people who come here are very chatty, and we often talk to each other. Most people really like that, but then someone comes here for the first time, and they think my behavior's strange.”

Rene, who is now over 50, has already reduced the restaurant opening hours from six to four days a week, so that he has more time to pursue other jazz-related interests. This will be a great loss for chatty diners with a penchant for quirky service, but a bonus for all lovers of jazz.

Restaurant Details

The copyright of the article Great Food at Amsterdam's Coffee and Jazz Cafe in European Culinary Travel is owned by Cecily Layzell. Permission to republish Great Food at Amsterdam's Coffee and Jazz Cafe in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Apr 24, 2009 12:23 AM

Guest :

Great satay to start, but the rest of the meal was a dissapointment, obviously cooked a long time beforehand and then nuked in the microwave prior to serving.
Drinks are expensive, the coffee is good but the beer is canned and extremely poor and the this must be the only place on the planet where the host prepares the food while smoking.
Been once, that was enough for me.