Amsterdam has many places that are perfect for sitting down, spending a lot of money, and enjoying a delicious meal, my personal favourite neighbourhood for food is De Pijp.
The Albert Cuypmarkt on a sunny day
Hey guys, welcome back to my food blog, my name is nvdw1441 and I will be telling you all about the best places where you can find great food and the best gentrified areas. Today I’ll be talking about De Pijp in Amsterdam.
An array of multicultural restaurants and food stands in the local Albert Cuypmarkt is what makes De Pijp stand out. The neighbourhood has undergone massive gentrification since 1990, as people were displaced to make room for middle-class housing, according to an article by Jaco Boer (2005). This process shaped the amenities that were in the area as well, as was the case in London and Manchester when they began to gentrify, where restaurants and services adapted to the residents’ more luxurious needs (Hamnett 2008). The long-standing Albert Cuypmarkt, around since 1905, is a market where multiculturalism thrives, with many stalls that serve traditional Dutch foods such as poffertijes and kibeling (fried fish), but also favourites like slightly seasoned chicken, or a classic grilled cheese. There are also other stalls such as the Vietnamese loempia stand or the dumpling stand, if that is to your liking.
Coffee and Coconuts, located at Ceintuurbaan 282-284, 1072 GK Amsterdam
Despite this vast multiculturality, some scholars say that public spaces such as the Albert Cuypmarkt target white, middle-class residents. This is an argument in an article by Fiore and Plate (2021), where they argue that ‘racial aesthetics’ help create public space where race is used as a “visual representation of different racial and ethnic groups based upon preconceived exotic narratives” (Fiore and Plate 2021: 394). Hence, according to the article, there is a superficial use of race to ensure that white middle-class residents and visitors can still feel safe in the neighbourhood. This is crazy, right? I mean there is no way that this is the case. My favourite restaurant in De Pijp is Coffee and Coconuts, located on the Ceintuurbaan; a restaurant based on traditional flavours of Bali, Indonesia. My favourite menu items have to be the dumplings filled with sweet potato or the nachos, available for EUR 13,50. Above you can see a picture I took of the restaurant with a lemon slushy that I had the other day, which I bought for a little over 5 euro, bargain!
For more information about the process of gentrification and the role of race, check out these sources:
Boer, J. (2005). Gentrification van de Oude Pijp en de Jordaan: een Onderzoek naar de Rol van de Overheid en het Particulier Initiatief. Thesis. Pp.1–80.
Fiore, E. and Plate, L. (2021). Food and White Multiculturalism: Racial Aesthetics of Commercial Gentrification in Amsterdam’s Javastraat. Space and Culture, 24(3), pp.392–407. doi:10.1177/12063312211001290.
Hamnett, C. (2008). The Regeneration Game. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/11/housing.