17 Hip Rotterdam Cafes and Other Foodie Hot Spots

The 17 Rotterdam cafes and restaurants below were picked for their terraces, and every one of them was re-checked before this update to confirm it still trades at the address given. Rotterdam is a city that eats outside the moment the weather allows it, so a good terrace counts for as much here as a good kitchen, and most of these places have both.

I have visited Rotterdam in the Netherlands several times and eaten at every place on this list myself. I add to it each time I go back and find a new hot spot, and I take places off it when they close. If you have found a coffee in Rotterdam that beats the ones here, tell me where and I will go and try it.

Terrace season in Rotterdam runs roughly from April to the end of September, and the city clusters its outdoor tables in a handful of places: the Witte de Withstraat and the streets around it, the Markthal and the Hoogstraat, the Deliplein on Katendrecht, the water at the Kralingse Plas and Het Park under the Euromast. Two habits save you time. Book ahead for dinner on the Witte de Withstraat, because the sidewalk terraces there fill first, and check a venue’s own site the morning you go, because Dutch cafes close on different weekdays and several take an annual summer break.

Rotterdam Cafes and other foodie hot spots

The Rotterdam cafes and foodie hot spots on this list cover full meals, quick bites, coffee and tea, and each entry gives the address, the terrace and what to order. Listed below are the 17 places, in the order they are described.

• Restaurant Bazar. A Mediterranean and Middle Eastern restaurant with rooms above it, on the Witte de Withstraat.
• Supermercado. A Latin American cocktail bar and restaurant with a large covered terrace, on the Schiedamse Vest.
• Baker & Moore. An all-day breakfast and lunch cafe on the Westblaak, with a terrace set back from the road.
• Poffertjessalon Seth. A poffertjes salon on the Hoogstraat, facing the Markthal.
• Ter Marsch & Co. An award-winning burger restaurant on the Witte de Withstraat, with a heated sidewalk terrace.
• Fenix Food Factory. An indoor market hall of small producers on Katendrecht, with waterside seating.
• DÂK. A pop-up rooftop park and barbecue on a car park roof, open for a few weeks each summer.
• The Tea Lab. A tea bar on the Westewagenstraat, with loose teas sorted by flavour.
• Visser & Ko. A coffee and high-tea cafe on the Westplein, near the Erasmus bridge.
• De Koffiebar. A lunchroom on the Karel Doormanstraat, serving Italian coffee and dessert coffees.
• Kopi Soesoe. An espresso bar and small music stage on the Deliplein, Katendrecht.
• Restaurant De Kade. A Surinamese-Chinese kitchen on the West-Kruiskade, with a full vegetarian menu.
• Parqiet. A park cafe in Het Park, at the foot of the Euromast.
• Café @Home. An espresso bar on the Goudsesingel, built for people working on laptops.
• Bertmans. An organic breakfast and lunch cafe in Rotterdam Noord, with a terrace by the water.
• De Tuin van de Vier Windstreken. A bistro in an 1867 mansion on the Kralingse Plas, with a lakeside terrace.
• Alfredo’s Taquería. A Mexican restaurant on the Goudsesingel, with a courtyard behind it.

1. Restaurant Bazar

Restaurant Bazar is a Mediterranean and Middle Eastern restaurant at Witte de Withstraat 16, and it serves food from breakfast until late at night. Bazar is also a hotel, which is why the building is open so many hours a day, and why the ground floor feels more like a hall than a dining room. The restaurant seats people across three floors and still feels warm, thanks to an oriental interior of wood and coloured lamps.

The reason it earns a place on a summer list is the sidewalk terrace, which is one of the biggest on a street full of them. The Witte de Withstraat is Rotterdam’s nightlife street, lined with bars, restaurants and fast-food places, and Bazar sits at the quieter end of it near the Museumpark. Reserve if you want a table outside, because the place fills up on both sides of the glass.

The kitchen is generous rather than refined, and the plates are big. When I ate here with three other people we ordered several small dishes to share, which is the right way to do it. Portions are large enough that four people can order five or six plates between them and still finish.

Practical information

Bazar Restaurant Rotterdam

Witte de Withstraat 16

Good to know: reservations are taken by phone rather than through the website’s contact form.

2. Supermercado

Supermercado is a Latin American cocktail bar and restaurant at Schiedamse Vest 91, on the corner where the street crosses the Witte de Withstraat. It has grown since I first ate there, when it was a new taco place: the menu now runs from tacos and ceviche to steaks and burgers cooked over charcoal, and the bar takes itself seriously.

The terrace is the reason to come here in summer. It is large, it is partly covered, and it sits off the main drag, which makes it a calmer alternative to the sidewalk tables on the Witte de Withstraat a few metres away. Supermercado also opens seven days a week, which not every restaurant on this list does.

I hesitated the first time, because the Google reviews were mixed and my hotel was close enough that I had walked past three times. The chicken and pork tacos I ordered were fresh, properly filled and quick to arrive, and the lentil one I added afterwards was as good. The service was friendly on both counts, which was exactly what the negative reviews had complained about.

Practical information

Supermercado

Schiedamse Vest 91

Good to know: the terrace is partially covered, so you can still sit outside through a drizzle.

3. Baker & Moore

Baker & Moore is an all-day breakfast and lunch cafe at Westblaak 147, and its terrace is separated from the traffic by a cycle path and a wide stretch of pavement. That gap is what makes it work, because the Westblaak is a busy road and you would not otherwise choose to sit on it. The interior is industrial with a lot of wood, and there is a mezzanine above the counter.

The menu is built around things you assemble yourself: made-to-order sandwiches, salad bowls, organic yoghurt, tea and coffee. There is a good run of gluten-free, lactose-free and sugar-free pastries too, which is rarer than it should be. I tried a coconut and chocolate one purely because it looked good, and it was.

Service on the terrace was slow the day I visited. The one server working outside kept passing our table to clear others, so we eventually went in to order at the counter, and a friendly man from behind it came out to take it. It read as one person with too many tables rather than a problem with the place.

Practical information

Baker & Moore

Westblaak 147

Good to know: laptops are welcome, the wifi is free, and the cafe opens at 7.30 a.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. at weekends.

4. Poffertjessalon Seth

Poffertjessalon Seth is the place to eat poffertjes in Rotterdam, and it sits at Hoogstraat 147 with a large terrace facing the Markthal. Poffertjes are a Dutch sweet: small, thick, spongy mini-pancakes served with melted butter and icing sugar, and they are to the Netherlands roughly what waffles and chocolate are to Belgium.

Seth has been making them on the Hoogstraat for more than 25 years, from a family recipe the owners do not share. You can order them with a long list of toppings, but the plain ones with butter and sugar are the version worth having. The terrace is a good spot for watching the Markthal crowd come and go, and the salon opens through the middle of the day rather than in the evening, which makes it an easy stop between the market hall and the Cube Houses.

Practical information

Poffertjessalon Seth

Hoogstraat 147

Good to know: it is a small salon and it does not take reservations, so at busy weekend hours you queue.

5. Ter Marsch & Co

Ter Marsch & Co is a burger restaurant at Witte de Withstraat 70, and it has built its name on winning Dutch burger awards. Its Korean-style Gojira burger has taken several titles, its fries have won a national award of their own, and the kitchen has placed in the top dozen at the world hamburger championships in Florida. I am not a burger person and I still went, because you do not skip a place with that record on your doorstep.

The terrace is small and on the pavement, and it has heat blowers that the staff will happily switch on when the evening turns. That extends the summer at both ends, which is why the restaurant is on this list rather than a winter one. It opens daily from midday and serves through to about 10 p.m., with sandwiches and salads on the card until early evening.

I ordered the Kip Grill chicken burger rather than the award-winning one, and the burger was good without being the thing I remember. What I remember is the sauce that came with the fries: lemon and rosemary instead of mayonnaise or ketchup. Order fries and that sauce even if you never eat burgers.

Practical information

Ter Marsch & Co

Witte de Withstraat 70

Good to know: the terrace has heat blowers, and online booking is limited to groups of eight or fewer.

6. Fenix Food Factory

Fenix Food Factory is an indoor market hall of small food producers on Katendrecht, in a converted dock warehouse on the south bank of the Maas. It is not a food court of fast-food counters. The stalls are makers: a bakery, a cheesemaker, a butcher, a fishmonger, a cider shop, a natural-wine shop and Kaapse Brouwers, the brewery whose taproom sits in the same complex.

Rechtstreex is the one to find if you want a proper plate rather than a snack. It sells fruit and vegetables bought straight from farms within about 50 km (31.1 mi) of Rotterdam, and it cooks soups, salads and quiches from them. I had a quiche with salad and cherry tomatoes and an apple juice from the same counter, and both were as good as the sourcing suggests. There is a run of Moroccan-style mezze elsewhere in the hall too.

Inside is a jumble of tables, chairs, sofas and, on my visit, a man playing the piano. My friends and I still sat outside, because the weather held, the noise dropped and the seating out there looks across the water at the city.

Practical information

Fenix Food Factory, Veerlaan 19D, Katendrecht

Good to know: there are free toilets inside the hall, and the market has shifted position within the Fenix warehouses more than once, so check the current entrance before you set off if you are following an older map.

7. DÂK

DÂK is a pop-up rooftop park on top of the Westblaak car park, and it runs for a few weeks in the middle of summer rather than all season. The concept is a social barbecue: you bring your own food, the organisers light the grills in the late afternoon, and there is a bar, a DJ stage, games and enough deck chairs to make an evening of it. Recent editions have opened around the middle of July and closed around the middle of August.

I did not make it to DÂK. My schedule in Rotterdam was full, DÂK only opens in the afternoon and evening, and I ran out of days. I am including it anyway, because a local recommended it to me unprompted and because it is one of the few rooftops in the centre open to anyone rather than attached to a hotel bar. Programming changes night to night, with masterclasses, rooftop yoga, film screenings, sport and after-work drinks alongside the barbecue, and entry is ticketed at a price that depends on the event.

Practical information

DÂK

Parking Westblaak, Hartmanstraat 35

Good to know: DÂK runs for roughly a month each summer and the dates move every year, so check the site before you plan an evening around it.

8. The Tea Lab

The Tea Lab is a tea bar at Westewagenstraat 80, and it is on this list despite having no terrace, because it is the most serious tea room in the city centre. It has been open since 2013 and it now serves lunch alongside the drinks: sandwiches on organic bread, salads and soups, plus coffee and bubble tea for anyone in the party who does not drink tea.

The loose-leaf list is what makes it worth the walk. Teas are grouped by flavour profile rather than by origin, so you choose between sweet and fruity first, and each one is marked as green, black or white, and as organic or caffeine-free where that applies. I had a Moroccan Mint, which is green tea with peppermint, lemongrass and verbena. Westewagenstraat runs behind the Blaak, a couple of minutes from the Markthal and the Cube Houses, and the room is small and busiest at lunch.

Practical information

The Tea Lab

Westewagenstraat 80

Good to know: it is not signposted clearly, but you order at the counter rather than at the table.

9. Visser & Ko

Visser & Ko is a coffee and lunch cafe at Westplein 107, in the Scheepvaartkwartier between the Erasmus bridge and Het Park. I found it because it was next door to where I was staying on one of my trips to Rotterdam, and I have wanted to go back ever since, because the menu was hard to choose from.

The house coffee is the Italian Drago Mocambo, and there is a full high tea alongside the light lunches. I had a smoothie, which was made properly rather than poured from a carton, and the sandwiches and bowls coming past the table looked better than what I had ordered. The cafe opens from mid-morning and stays open into the evening on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Westplein is a quiet square with trees, a short walk from the Euromast and the water taxi pier at the Veerhaven, which makes this a good first stop on a day that ends in Het Park or on Katendrecht.

Practical information

Visser & Ko

Westplein 107

Good to know: the high tea has to be booked at least a day ahead.

10. De Koffiebar

De Koffiebar is a lunchroom at Karel Doormanstraat 352, in the middle of the shopping centre of Rotterdam, and its speciality is dessert coffees. Alongside the standard espresso menu there is a long list of flavoured, sweetened coffees that arrive looking like puddings, which is either the reason you go or the reason you do not. The coffee itself is the Italian Buscaglione brand.

You can eat here as well as drink. The kitchen does sandwiches, lunch plates and smoothies through the day, and it has added an evening service, so this is no longer only a daytime stop. The terrace faces the street, which on the Karel Doormanstraat means a steady flow of shoppers to watch.

This is the most central cafe on the list, a few minutes from the Lijnbaan and the Koopgoot, so it works as a break in the middle of a shopping day. Our guide to shopping in Rotterdam covers what is around it.

Practical information

De Koffiebar

Karel Doormanstraat 352

Good to know: the coffee is roasted by the Italian Buscaglione brand, and dinner is served as well as lunch.

11. Kopi Soesoe

Kopi Soesoe is an espresso bar with a small music stage at Sumatraweg 15, on the Deliplein in Katendrecht. It is tiny, with a handful of seats out front and a colourful room behind them, and it doubles as a venue on Friday and Saturday nights, when it stays open into the small hours.

The house drink is the one the bar is named after: kopi susu, Indonesian coffee with condensed milk and cardamom. Beyond that there is espresso and filter coffee brewed by V60 and Aeropress, lunch, and cakes and pies baked on the premises. It was raining the day I went, so I sat inside with a nut pie and a coffee, which is a good use of Dutch weather.

Katendrecht was the city’s Chinatown and dockland, and the Deliplein is now its restaurant square, a short walk from the Rijnhavenbrug footbridge, so pair this with the Fenix Food Factory for most of an afternoon on the peninsula.

Practical information

Kopi Soesoe

Sumatraweg 15

Good to know: breakfast and lunch are served as well as coffee, and the bar runs late on Friday and Saturday.

12. Restaurant De Kade

Restaurant De Kade is a Surinamese-Chinese kitchen at West-Kruiskade 17B, and its Dutch name hides what it actually cooks. It works as fast food in the sense that the food arrives quickly and you can take it away, and it works as a restaurant in the sense that people come here to sit down with friends for a whole evening. Both are true at once.

The vegetarian side of the menu is the part worth knowing about. De Kade runs a separate meat-and-fish menu and a full vegetarian one, with meat substitutes that include vegan chicken, vegan babi pangang and vegan duck, and many of the meat dishes can be made without meat on request. Dumplings, moksi meti and the spiced prawns are what regulars order.

I came here on a night when I had planned to eat elsewhere and was too tired to. Arriving early, around 5.30 p.m., meant a quiet room and a quick meal before I walked back to the hotel. I ordered baked banana for dessert, which I stand by. The West-Kruiskade is the city’s most mixed food street, five minutes from Rotterdam Centraal.

Practical information

De Kade

West-Kruiskade 17B

Good to know: there is a full vegetarian menu, and most meat dishes can be prepared vegetarian or vegan.

13. Parqiet

Parqiet is a park cafe in Het Park, the green strip at the foot of the Euromast, and it serves drinks, breakfast and lunch from a white pavilion in the middle of it. The terrace looks out over grass and trees, which is why it fills before the indoor tables do. I ate a grilled sandwich there and had to sit inside, because the outside was understandably full.

The cafe opens daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., though the hours shift with the season. It takes bookings by email on weekdays but not for weekends or public holidays, so at the weekend you turn up and wait for a table like everyone else.

Het Park runs down to the Maas beside the Euromast and the Veerhaven, and it is one of the easiest green spaces to reach on foot from the centre. More of the city’s parks are covered in our guide to the Kralingse Bos and other Rotterdam parks.

Practical information

Parqiet

Baden Powelllaan 20, Het Park

Good to know: weekend and public-holiday tables cannot be reserved.

14. Café @Home

Café @Home is an espresso bar at Goudsesingel 52, and it is set up for people who want to work rather than linger over a meal. There are plugs at most tables, the wifi is free, and locals use it to study, work and hold meetings. When I was there it had one small table outside and a lot of seating in.

The menu is short, as an espresso bar’s should be: breakfast, sandwiches and pastries, with coffee roasted by Santas Koffie in the Rotterdam docks. It opens early on weekdays, from 7.30 a.m., and from 9 a.m. at weekends, closing in the late afternoon. The Goudsesingel sits just outside the commercial centre, a 10-minute walk from the Markthal, which is why it is quieter than anything on the Lijnbaan.

Practical information

Café @Home

Goudsesingel 52

Good to know: the menu is limited to breakfast, sandwiches and pastries, because this is an espresso bar rather than a kitchen.

15. Bertmans

Bertmans is an organic breakfast and lunch cafe at Zaagmolenkade 15 in Rotterdam Noord, and my friend Anne introduced me to it. The card is built around dishes that sound healthy and taste better than that suggests, with vegan and gluten-free versions of most things, quinoa bowls, soups and omelettes. Breakfast, lunch and everything in between are served, and the kitchen closes in the late afternoon.

The terrace is the summer reason to cross the water for it. Part of it sits in front of the building and part of it runs along the Zaagmolenkade itself, so you eat looking at the canal. The cafe has since opened a second branch on the Schouwburgplein in the centre, but the Noord original is the one with the water, and Rotterdam Noord is worth the tram ride on its own: residential, low-rise, full of independent shops, and nothing like the postcard skyline.

Practical information

Bertmans

Zaagmolenkade 15

Good to know: avocado toast has been on the menu since long before it was a joke, and there is now a second Bertmans on the Schouwburgplein.

16. De Tuin van de Vier Windstreken

De Tuin van de Vier Windstreken is a bistro on the Kralingse Plas, and its name means “Garden of the Four Cardinal Directions”. It occupies a mansion built in 1867 on the lake shore in Kralingen, and in summer its terrace is one of the largest waterside terraces in Rotterdam. That is the whole point of coming: you eat lunch with the lake in front of you and the Kralingse Bos behind.

The kitchen is a straightforward bistro one, and the setting does the work. Behind the main terrace there are benches facing the water, which are the seats to take if the tables are full and you only want a drink. The restaurant is a 20-minute tram ride from the centre, so build an afternoon around it rather than dropping in.

The lake and the woods around it are the biggest green space in the city. I have written about them in more detail in our guide to the Kralingse Bos and other Rotterdam parks.

Practical information

De Tuin van de Vier Windstreken

Plaszoom 354

Good to know: behind the regular terrace there are benches with a view of the water.

17. Alfredo’s Taquería

Alfredo’s Taquería is a Mexican restaurant at Goudsesingel 204, and it has a courtyard behind it that is large enough to be the reason you book. Anne took me there when it was fairly new. We started with nachos and guacamole and moved on to a mix of tacos, and we sat outside, which is what the courtyard is for.

The food was good. The wait for it was long, and that is the honest version of the evening: Anne had eaten there before with quick service, and the reviews since have been positive, so I am recording it as one bad night rather than a pattern. The kitchen closes on Mondays and opens from late morning the rest of the week, and Café @Home is a few hundred metres along the same street if you want coffee afterwards.

Practical information

Alfredo’s Taquería

Goudsesingel 204

Good to know: the indoor room gets loud, so ask for the courtyard when you book.

Places that have closed since this list was written

Three places that used to be on this list have gone, and older Rotterdam guides still send people to all three. Op het Dak, the rooftop restaurant on the Schieblock that grew its own herbs and vegetables on the Dakakker roof farm, closed in 2021, and the roof is now run by a different operator. Lof der Zoetheid, the tea and cake room at Noordplein 1, shut after 14 years on the square. Urban 9 at Botersloot 44A no longer trades under that name; the premises are now a coffee bar called Nine Bar.

The Rotterdam Welcome Card, which used to give a discount at some of the places on this list, is no longer reliably sold. Buy attraction tickets and city transport separately, or check what the tourist office is offering when you arrive.

Where to stay in Rotterdam

Stay within walking distance of the Witte de Withstraat and the Markthal, because most of the terraces on this list are inside that triangle and the rest are a tram ride from it. The centre of Rotterdam is compact, and a hotel near the Leuvehaven or the Blaak puts you within 15 minutes on foot of everything except Kralingen and Rotterdam Noord.

I stayed on the Leuvehaven, in the hotel that traded then as Inntel Hotels Rotterdam Centre and now trades as the DoubleTree by Hilton Rotterdam Centre. The room had a view over the water, free wifi and breakfast included, the metro entrance was directly in front of the door, and the walk to the Witte de Withstraat took about ten minutes. Check availability, prices and reviews for the Leuvehaven hotel.

Katendrecht is the other option worth considering, if you would rather be near the Deliplein and the Fenix Food Factory than in the centre. It is quieter, it is cheaper, and the Rijnhavenbrug footbridge and the water taxi both connect it to the middle of the city in minutes. A Netherlands hotel search will show what is free on your dates in both areas.

How to get to Rotterdam

Fly into Amsterdam Schiphol and take the Intercity Direct train, which runs from the airport to Rotterdam Centraal without a change. Schiphol is the closest large airport, Rotterdam The Hague Airport is much smaller and served mainly by European carriers, and the train from Schiphol takes well under an hour. Compare flights into the Netherlands before you fix your dates, because the Schiphol fare is often lower than the direct one.

By rail from elsewhere in Europe, Rotterdam Centraal is on the high-speed line between Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris. The trains that used to run as Thalys now run under the Eurostar name, after the two operators merged in 2023, so a search for Thalys will send you to Eurostar. From Belgium this is the fastest way in, and it lands you in the middle of the city rather than at an airport. Compare train times and fares across Europe to see what your route costs.

Coaches are the cheapest way in and the slowest. Long-distance buses to Dutch cities serve Rotterdam from Belgium, Germany and France, usually stopping at Rotterdam Centraal. Once you are in the city, the metro, tram and bus network covers everything on this list, and the water taxi is the enjoyable way to cross to Katendrecht.

Don’t forget travel insurance

Take out travel insurance before you go, because the things that go wrong on a city break are the cheap ones that become expensive: a lost reservation, a stomach bug, a camera that meets a canal. Good cover turns each of those into a claim rather than a ruined trip.

I have had ongoing travel insurance since I started travelling, so that every trip is covered without my having to think about it. If you only travel a few times a year, per-trip cover works out cheaper, and it is worth pricing both before you buy.

Check out SafetyWing if you do not have anything in place. Their plans are flexible enough to sign up for after you have already left, they were the first travel insurer to cover COVID, and when I caught COVID they reimbursed everything without an argument. Their support team has been good every time I have needed it.

I was first invited to Rotterdam by the Rotterdam Tourism Board to experience the city in summer. As always, I write whatever I want on here.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from eating at these places across several summer trips, and from re-checking every one of them before this update.

1. Order the fries and the lemon and rosemary sauce at Ter Marsch & Co, whether or not you want a burger. I ordered the chicken burger and it was the sauce I remembered afterwards, and the fries have a national award of their own. Book ahead if there are more than eight of you, because online booking stops at that number.
2. Sit on Supermercado’s terrace rather than on the Witte de Withstraat pavement. It is a few metres off the main street, partly covered and much calmer, and Supermercado opens seven days a week when several places on this list do not. I nearly skipped it over some sour recent reviews, went on one local’s recommendation instead, and was served quickly by two friendly people.
3. Order at the counter inside Baker & Moore instead of waiting on the terrace. One server covers the whole outside area, and on my visit she was clearing tables faster than she could take orders. Going in took two minutes and a man from behind the counter came straight out to us.
4. Confirm the Fenix Food Factory entrance before you cross to Katendrecht. The market has moved position within the Fenix warehouses more than once, so an older map can put you at the wrong door of the right complex. The toilets inside the hall are free.
5. Check DÂK’s own site before you plan an evening on the roof. It runs for roughly a month in the middle of summer, recently mid-July to mid-August, and only opens in the afternoon and evening. That combination is why I have never got there.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes in this post come from her repeat summer trips to Rotterdam. The team covers the Netherlands for independent travellers, including the cafes, terraces, restaurants and hotels worth booking in Rotterdam, and re-checks every venue on this page before each update, dropping the ones that have closed.