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The year 2023 in review

For various reasons the first half of the year saw quite a few vegan restaurants closing! The aftermath of corona, staff shortage as well as increased costs of energy and supplies took its toll, and perhaps vegan restaurants are more vulnerable for that. But still eleven new vegan places opened up. Happy Cow currently lists 574 vegan and vegan-friendly locations in Amsterdam, of which 67 are fully vegan.

Furthermore we see an ongoing presence of vegan products in the supermarket. Attention for the interests of animals in media and exhibitions. Dedicated activists allover the country continuously spending their time for the freedom of other animals. Still relatively small in numbers, but veganism and animal rights are no longer a fringe issue. Read more

The year 2022 in review: great variety

liever hier

The corona lockdown period feels like a long time ago and Amsterdam horeca came back to life. Like last year, this year we also gained 15 new vegan places in town (including second locations or existing omnivore restaurants switching to vegan)! And all so different from eachother, shows that veganism is really for everyone these days.

The Amsterdam Happy Cow page currently shows a total of 531 vegan and vegan-friendly addresses, of which 72 are vegan. Just to say, only three years ago that number of vegan addresses at Happy Cow was 39 so it almost doubled since then! Read more

People’s kitchen AND seven course vegan dinner at this Sloterdijk community space

testtafel de sering

De Sering started in 2019 as a community kitchen in a building at Middenweg, originating out of a group of Extinction Rebellion activists. Besides the food here they also hosted lectures, movie screenings etc. After a while they attracted more and more people, including students and people living in the neighbourhood.

In order to be able to finance it all they started with Testtafel. A more fancy dining concept generating a bit more income. Originally they meant to organise just a few dinner nights, but it quickly grew so successful that they continued with it. After being housed at various temporary locations, they now found a stable home within theater space De Sloot, located in Westpoort. Here they opened spring 2022. Read more

The animals around us: taking care of Amsterdam’s city pigeons

pigeon rescue amsterdam

Being the most common bird in Amsterdam, probably you’ve seen pigeons walking around with great difficulty, as some toes or even the whole foot is missing. I never thought much about it and assumed that this individual had an unlucky accident. But they are not isolated cases and it’s actually very common among city pigeons. It’s caused by little strings, threads or human hair from the city streets which get wrapped around the toes and feet, eventually can lead to those body parts dying off. This is known as stringfoot.

In Amsterdam a group of people is determined to help them and are checking on pigeons on a regular basis. Many pigeons can be helped by just catching them and cutting the strings with a small scissors. I’m talking to animal rights activist Billie Savage, who initiated the project. Read more

The year 2021 in review: record amount of new vegan restaurants!

margo's amsterdam

We started the year with closed restaurants, we’re ending the year with closed restaurants. BUT despite corona this year a record amount of new vegan places opened!! Eleven new restaurants. On top of that, four existing restaurants decided to skip all animal products and go fully vegan, so that makes fifteen in total!

The Amsterdam Happy Cow page is currently listing 468 vegan and vegan-friendly adresses, 63 of them fully vegan. And Lonely Planet now included info on vegan restaurants in their latest Amsterdam guidebook, adding “Long at the forefront of vegetarian cuisine, Amsterdam led the way with vegan dining and has numerous restaurants citywide.” Read more