Matcha Bar Amsterdam

A Japanese cafe with pink pastel colour-ed interior? Count me in please! Amsterdam doesn’t lack cute-looking cafes but a full Japanese one, like the Matcha Bar Amsterdam, is certainly a unique one across the city.

From our trip, we find it quite common to find Matcha and Matcha Lattes on the menus of Amsterdam’s cafes. However, I believe Matcha Bar Amsterdam is the first cafe in the city to be all about matcha. Given that we love matcha, we couldn’t wait to check this place out and it was, in fact, the first food place we went after landing in Amsterdam!

The shop follows a very Instagrammable pastel pink theme, with one long bench lined with adorable pillows set along the wall. It’s more spacious than expected and it has a cozy vibe in there. The staff were extremely nice and friendly. Plus, it also has a very nice playlist featuring a lot of Jhene Aiko’s music!

Here is what we ordered:

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Matcha Soft Serve (€2)

With the matcha soft serve priced at only €2, there’s no way we’re going to miss out. You also get to choose from charcoal or normal cone – of course we went for the charcoal one! The ice cream went slightly loop-sided and the staff very sweetly offered to redo the ice cream for us. It’s a very kind offer but it’s honestly not that bad so we saved the hassle.

The texture of the soft serve was really smooth, creamy and velvety. Despite taking a lot of time snapping pictures, it didn’t melt at all. In fact, it didn’t melt all the way through the end. That certainly proves a really good quality of ice cream. Flavour-wise it’s quite milky. The matcha flavour wasn’t really strong. It’s more like a subtle fragrance seeping through.

And by the way, each soft serve is topped with a Pocky stick!

Matcha Tart (€4.50)

Then we got the Matcha Tart, which is composed of a matcha cake base that’s topped with a matcha cream. The pie was really lovely and we all loved it. The cream was very airy and light to taste. Its base was very aromatic with swifts of matcha fragrance seeping through. It was dense but not stiff, and it balanced well with the dainty delicate matcha cream.

Madeleines (€4 / 5pc)

There are two flavours to choose from for these adorable shell-shaped cakes – Matcha or Kinako. You can get them individually but it’s definitely a better deal to get them in a pack of five. The pre-packed ones offer a mix of both flavours.

In our opinions, these madeleines were a bit underwhelming. It lacked the spongy texture and were rather dry. We went relatively late so I guess these cakes had been left over the counter for a while so it didn’t taste fresh. They still have a buttery touch but that dried up texture just wasn’t the most appealing.

Matcha Bubble Milk Tea (€4)

The bubble milk tea, though it looks good and tasted reasonably nice, the bubbles were rather a disappointment. The bubbles were definitely not cooked properly. It has the mild sweetness but it’s incredibly hard like it hasn’t been cooked through at all. As for the matcha milk itself, it was pretty decent – smooth to taste and the right balance of matcha, milk and sugar.

In summary…

We all agree that Matcha Bar Amsterdam is a very cute and Instagrammable spot in the city. When it comes to food, they were okay. We enjoyed the Matcha Tart and the Matcha Soft Serve, which we’d recommend trying. But overall, we didn’t find everything that impressive. It’s a cute spot to swing by if you’re around, but I wouldn’t say to get out of your way to visit.

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Tel: +31 20 233 8521
Website: https://www.matchabar.nl/

Nearest Metro station: De Pijp