Dutch food and drink vocabulary
Ordering food is where most people speak their first real Dutch to a stranger. It is also where they give up fastest, because Dutch service staff switch to English the moment they hear an accent. These are the words and phrases worth having ready, grouped by the situation you will need them in.
In a cafe
A Dutch cafe is usually table service, and you pay at the end rather than at the counter. If you want to stay a while nobody will hurry you. The one thing worth knowing is that asking for koffie gets you a normal filter coffee, not an espresso, and that it very often arrives with a small biscuit balanced on the saucer.
| English | Dutch |
|---|---|
| A coffee, please | Een koffie, alstublieft |
| Coffee with milk | Koffie verkeerd |
| A tea | Een thee |
| A beer | Een biertje / een pils |
| Tap water | Kraanwater |
| Is this table free? | Is deze tafel vrij? |
| Can I pay by card? | Kan ik met pin betalen? |
Ordering a meal
Dutch lunch surprises visitors: it is usually bread, eaten quickly, somewhere around noon. The hot meal of the day is the evening one, and restaurant kitchens close earlier than in southern Europe - asking for a table at ten in the evening will often get you a polite refusal. Booking is normal even for ordinary places.
| English | Dutch |
|---|---|
| A table for two, please | Een tafel voor twee, alstublieft |
| The menu, please | De kaart, alstublieft |
| What do you recommend? | Wat kunt u aanbevelen? |
| The dish of the day | Het dagmenu |
| Starter / main / dessert | Voorgerecht / hoofdgerecht / nagerecht |
| It was delicious | Het was heerlijk |
| The bill, please | De rekening, alstublieft |
At the supermarket
Supermarket Dutch is mostly reading rather than speaking, and the packaging vocabulary repeats endlessly: halfvolle for semi-skimmed, ongezouten for unsalted, houdbaar tot for the date it keeps until. Learning fifteen label words does more for daily life than fifty restaurant phrases, because you meet them several times a week rather than once a month.
| English | Dutch |
|---|---|
| Bread | Brood |
| Cheese | Kaas |
| Semi-skimmed milk | Halfvolle melk |
| Unsalted | Ongezouten |
| Best before | Houdbaar tot |
| Special offer | Aanbieding |
| A bag, please | Een tasje, alstublieft |
Saying what you cannot eat
This is the one group of phrases worth being able to say without hesitating, because it is the one where being misunderstood actually matters. Ik ben allergisch voor is understood everywhere and taken seriously. Vegetarian and vegan options are widely available and clearly marked, so the words below will usually be met with a straightforward answer rather than confusion.
| English | Dutch |
|---|---|
| I am allergic to... | Ik ben allergisch voor... |
| I am vegetarian | Ik ben vegetarier |
| Does this contain nuts? | Zitten hier noten in? |
| Without gluten / lactose | Glutenvrij / lactosevrij |
| I cannot eat meat | Ik kan geen vlees eten |
Snacks, and the borrel
One word carries more social weight than any other here: borrel, the after-work drink with something small to eat. It is where colleagues actually talk to each other, and being invited to one is a real invitation rather than a politeness. The food that comes with it has its own vocabulary - bitterballen above all, plus kaasblokjes and nootjes - and none of it appears in a textbook. A friet from a counter is ordered with a sauce named outright: friet met mayo is a complete sentence.
Learning it so it arrives in time
A phrase you can recognise on a page is not the same as one you can produce while somebody waits. The gap between the two is closed by recall under a small amount of time pressure, which is what a short daily game does and what rereading a list does not. Pick one table, cover the Dutch column, and work down it out loud before you next need it.