Amsterdam’s Chinese food scene goes far beyond the roast duck joints and takeaways of Zeedijk, the city’s historic Chinatown. These days you’ll find everything from delicate Cantonese dim sum to tongue-tingling Sichuan specialities and hearty hand-pulled noodles from China’s northwest.
What are the best Chinese restaurants in Amsterdam?
Whether you’re after a steaming hotpot to share with friends or a leisurely dim sum afternoon tea, here are my curated picks of Amsterdam’s top Chinese restaurants – tried, tested and foodie-approved.
Oriental City
If you’re craving real-deal dim sum, head to Oriental City in the Red Light District. Split over several floors and adorned with decorations that transport you straight to the Orient, the restaurant is well-known for its extensive tea selection and its huge dim sum menu. Much more than just dumplings, Oriental City’s Cantonese dim sum ranges from steamed prawn balls to sweet water chestnut pudding.
Sea Palace
Alternatively, if you like your Chinese food with a big helping of kitsch, hop on board the enormous floating Sea Palace – a boat in the shape of a Chinese pagoda moored just to the east of Centraal Station. You can’t miss it. Sea Palace also serves a good dim sum menu, but they offer other Cantonese dishes, Beijing duck and Sichuan cuisine as well (more on that below). It might look like a tourist trap but the food is actually surprisingly good.
China Sichuan Restaurant
The Sichuan province of China is best known for its ultra-spicy dishes that are not for the faint of palate – taking their heat primarily from dried red chilies and Sichuan peppercorns. If you love to feel the burn, head straight to the aptly named China Sichuan Restaurant. I was a big fan of their fiery yet silky mapo tofu and their fabulously named “ants on trees”: a spicy combination of minced pork, glass noodles, spring onions and seaweed. But everything I tried was bold, punchy and spot-on.
Yuan’s Hot Pot
For excellent Chengdu-style hotpot, don’t miss Yuan’s Hot Pot – now with four locations in Amsterdam. Gather your friends and sit around a steaming vat of broth while you dip assorted skewers of meat, fish or veggies into it until they’re cooked. There are two types of broth to choose from: one spicy and one mild, although you can hedge your bets and opt for half and half. You also get to mix your own dipping sauce from the wide variety of condiments lined up at the counter. Sichuan hotpot is perhaps one of my favourite communal dining experiences.
Peijie Hotpot
More hotpot, but Peijie’s version comes from Chongqing (rather than Chengdu) – which is purported to be even fierier than its Sichuan rival. And as anyone who knows me knows, my motto is the hotter the better! We ordered the “medium” spice level for our beef tallow broth, and it was not messing around. Into the fiery broth, we dipped thinly sliced beef (marinated in more chillies), dainty balls of pork and cuttlefish, slices of starchy lotus root and leafy greens – the latter of which sopped up more of the chilli-laced liquid than anything else. Once cooked, we doused the dipped ingredients into a custom blend of sesame oil, spring onions, garlic and coriander before popping them in our mouths and then reaching for a cooling glass of passion fruit juice. The flavours were fragrant as well as fiery, and we kept going back for more. To avoid disaster, I suggest you do not wear your best clothes (you will smell like a hotpot from hair to socks by the end of it) and do take Peijie up on their offer of an apron!
Editor’s note: I was invited to eat at Peijie Hotpot as a journalist, and I didn’t pay for my meal. Obviously I try to be as objective as possible, but I always disclose when I’ve had a freebie.
China Supreme
Tucked down south in Buitenveldert, China Supreme specialises in thick, hand-pulled noodles that stem from Northwest China. I’d watched a video of someone making hand-pulled noodles years ago, then thought “that looks complicated, I wonder where I can get someone to make them for me?” All of which led me (eventually) to China Supreme, where I ordered the Biang-Biang noodles for lunch. The noodles themselves tasted sort of like a dumpling in noodle format, and they came with braised pork belly, a sweet & sour tomato and egg sauce, bok choy and chilli oil. Delicious, but you’ll be hoping for a nap afterwards.
Jinweide
A few months after visiting China Supreme, I discovered Jinweide – also making authentic Chinese hand-pulled noodles in various formats, and doing it very well indeed. You can watch the chefs pull the noodles in front of you, and pick which thickness of noodle you want in your meal. We went for the wide, flat ones in the spicy cold noodle dish, and the thinner round ones in our beef noodle soup. Both were full of flavour (especially if you get the spicy version like we did), and come with some exceptionally moreish salads on the side. A great value taste of Northwest China!
