Amsterdam’s Cafés as Stages for Public Relevance
By Nayana Missaglia | Culture | February 10, 2026
Cover Illustration: Shallow Focus Photography of Coffee Late in Mug on Table, 2017. Nathan Damlao / Unsplash
Amsterdam’s café culture has shifted from a simple love for coffee into a curated, performative arena where social visibility and belonging often matter more than the drink itself.
We all drink coffee. If not coffee, then tea. And if not tea, then some other type of caffeinated or energetic concoction. Depending on culture, traditions and surroundings, people associate different meanings with consuming a hot drink. In Italy, espresso is king. Just as the word suggests, it often represents the frenetic routine of early mornings, when everyone is running to get to work or to school. Still, there is always time to stop by the bar, down a shot of hardcore caffeine and gossip with the locals. Meanwhile, if we think of coffee and the USA, what comes to mind is either the free refill “cup of joe” at your local Wafflehouse or the diabetes-inducing caramel frappuccino from Starbucks.
But what makes buying hot drinks so addicting when you could just be making your own at home for free? As a university student here in Amsterdam, staying home and making yourself a coffee is quite a challenging task, I must say. Why? Because as soon as I step foot out into the streets, get on my bike and start heading to class, I am immediately tempted to stop by the ten different specialty cafés and local bakeries on my way. Expectedly, most of them are minimalistic in style, have mango matcha on the menu and sell some sort of French or Danish pastry.
From my standpoint, Amsterdam is not the city of coffee shops. And yes, that may sound strange coming from the country that uses coffee shop to signify weedshop, but I stand by my point. Amsterdam is the city of cafés. Every month, in every area of the city, a new café seems to open its doors to Amsterdam’s finest: millennial entrepreneurs that take their laptops everywhere, Gen Z university students that can’t afford their order and couples that post their matching outfits on Instagram.
So when did buying your morning coffee become such a performative act? Why is this city the hub for café culture and what do its partakers think about it all? I for one believe it all comes down to social pressure.
Around the mid-to-late 2010s, a boom of health-oriented and wellness brands exploded on social media. Thanks to the rise of Facebook, Instagram, food blogs and eventually even TikTok, clean eating and exercise rose to the top of the social media popularity hierarchy. With that came the matcha and coffee-alternative drinks wave that swept everyone and their mother off their feet. Suddenly, relevant public figures were all seen walking around with a cup of bright green liquid in one hand and a piping hot oat latte in the other. That can only mean one thing: sheep herd mentality.
Amsterdam, as the international hub that it is, knows quite well how to cater to its diverse population. The walkability aspect and compact urban environment beg for cultural and social hubs which attract most people no matter where they come from. Cafés are the perfect compromise. A place where you do not stay for too long but can still enjoy a nice conversation with a friend while sipping on a hot drink. What has transformed these places into performative-land is their overwhelming online presence.
There are certain recurring experiences when going to a café. Taking badly lit pictures of your coffee’s latte art, feeling incredibly uncool compared to the hot alternative barista behind the counter, waiting in excruciatingly long queues only to find your favorite pastry sold out hours ago. The list could go on. These rituals are not for the weak. It is rather the possibility of gaining social media relevance or achieving networking success that motivates us to participate in the humiliating theatrics of walking into a trendy café.
These spots have turned into meccas for social prosperity where feeling judged by the hipster café owner is almost a mandatory experience. What is more, the prices for these very basic drinks have skyrocketed. And yes, rent is high and businesses need to be kept running, but is a five-euro latte justifiable only because you asked for it with soy milk instead of cow’s? And how does our consciousness feel when we spend seven euros for a matcha latte with yellow syrup that barely resembles the taste of mango? We seem to feel no guilt at all, as evidenced by our frequent return visits.
“There’s an unspoken pressure when I go to a café here in Amsterdam,” commented a 21-year-old Media and Culture BA student. “[…] they (the cafés) look sort of spotless and very curated, and so it feels like you also need to look curated in order to fit in– especially nowadays when most people going to these trendy spots are there to film content and post on social media.”
Partaking in café culture is not performative in nature. Online presence is inevitable and is not necessarily a symbol of arrogance and superiority. That being said, it does feel like many of these places advertise a specific format to follow, which has completely overshadowed the original protagonist (coffee…) by giving space to superficial and attention-grabbing substitutes such as dairy alternatives, greenwashed sustainability measures and trendy furniture. Yes, a café can be representative of its owner’s passions and personal tastes. No wrong done there. But innocent decor and researched ingredients turn into ego boosters and exclusive social circles quite easily when the lines between genuinity and dishonesty are blurred.
Nayana Missaglia is a university student in Amsterdam. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Amsterdammer.
