We have both been travelling to Amsterdam for years and it is arguably our favourite city in Europe. While there will be a number of winks and nudges as to why that may be, it is genuinely one of the most civilised cultures we have experienced and most beautiful in terms of buildings, art, and, above all, food. Our Easter Saturday visit to Noordmarkt on Prinsengracht and Westerstraat is enough to prove this to anyone. In the 3 minutes it took for us to walk around before rushing off to buy more serious provisions for the holiday, we must have walked past (and tasted samples from) half-a-dozen cheese stalls, a number of fine bakery stalls and an oyster seller whose key customer was one  busily slurping 3-year-old boy.

The cheese samples, in particular a lemony-sweet goat’s cheese covered in cornflowers was a highlight, as well as the oysters which, served with a tiny quarter-slice of lemon, were a perfect perk to the morning. On the day we visited the market, lunch consisted of the same goat’s cheese, a springy sourdough cob and some goudsalami; in other words, all you could ask for from a good couple hours of hunter-gathering to eat sat in a secluded harbour. While this was a great moment for us, what makes Amsterdam great is that all the lunches that we had out while wondering around the city were delicious. Whether it wasa bagel shop by the Rijksmuseum, with it fantastic collections of art from the Dutch ‘Golden Age’, or our toasty and beer sat at Cafe Heuvel watching the world pass by we were stumped to find a duff meal.

Which brings us onto another important point – beer. While Dutch beers may have attracted world attention through sponsorship of any number of sporting events, few drink it the same way – in dinky half-pints. Lager is infinitely fresher drunk this way and sinks down nicely. Undoubtedly, this is helped along by the fact that the brewery is only a short walk away, as in the case of Heineken.