Rotterdam cafes & restaurants

One of 66 Rotterdam Cafe & Restaurant reviews.

Recommendation: try it out until the waiting tries your patience.

Bagel Bakery is a stylish North American yuppie-style bagel cafe, which is pretty rare for Rotterdam. The decor has the same plain walls and high ceilings look as Urban Espresso Bar, but here there's actually enough space to make it really work. Urban Espresso Bar wins on the coffee, though: its Flat White is just ahead of Bagel Bakery's bowlful of frothy koffie verkeerd.

Most customers are here are for the bagels, which come with a great variety of adventurous but well-conceived fillings. Although Cappucino's plain bagels are arguably better, their menu is more basic than the likes of Bagel Bakery's cream cheese with carpaccio and roast peppers, even though it is now just as expensive. In a similar inversion of Cappucino's seating plan, the spacious interior seating here is supplemented by a small terrace in the summer, which is most pleasant. Bagel Bakery also has interesting specials on the blackboard from time to time, and the mezze is pretty good and features excellent hummus.

On my most recent visit, I noticed that the service has improved since last year, when you would be lucky to get what you actually ordered, however long the wait. Instead, the staff are now positively friendly.