We are for a more resilient food production and consumption system, which preserves and restores natural ecosystems. We are searching for products which are produced without polluting or degrading the environment. Food which is not in competition with precious ecosystems. We want to demonstrate that ecologically sustainable agriculture can feed the world without damaging the natural environment or threatening human health. We take action to make sure our products are as sustainable, local and nutritious as possible.
Besides safeguarding that our products are from sustainable sources, we try to completely close the cycle and also ensure that the eventual destination of our food is sustainable.
We are on our way to a zero-waste kitchen and recycle as much as possible. Read more about our Greenhouse, the Biogasboat, and our urinal which produces struvite.
Nothing can beat a nice cold one with a beautiful sunset. But the beer tastes even better if there is a good story behind it! That is why we serve Gulpener.
Gulpener is a family owned brewery, the last major independent brewer of the Netherlands that is not owned by a multi-national. They've been focusing on making their company more sustainable for over a decade. They grow their wheat, hop and barley sustainably in the gentle hills of our own Limburg. All of their beers have a special sustainability certification and most of their special beers are organic!
In addition to Gulpener, we serve all kinds of delicious beers from Amsterdam-based brewers. These are all small and local brewers, that try their best to work organic and sustainably. Because the beers are brewed in the neighborhood, the carbon footprint by transport is minimal.
Kaap Koffie buys the beans directly from a Colombian cooperative of women farmers and pays a fair price. The organic beans then sail across the ocean on a wooden barge: 100% powered by nature (wind, current & man/woman power).
Kaap Koffie buys the beans directly from a Colombian cooperative of women farmers and pays a fair price. The organic beans then sail across the ocean on a wooden barge: 100% powered by nature (wind, current & man/woman power).
Kaap Koffie delivers the coffee in recyclable barrels and bags and our team scatters the rubbish over the green on the Ceuvel terrain. That way we are kind to the earth. And so are you. By the way, Kaap Koffie is also pretty tasty. But to be honest, we are not entirely objective.
Would you like to drink the cleanest coffee in the world at home? You can. In our store you can buy a biodegradable bag to take home.
Just north of Amsterdam in the characeristic village of Zunderdorp is located the Zorgboerderij ‘Ons Verlangen’ (Care farm ‘Our Longing’).
Cows, sheep, horses, chickens, goats, rabbits and pigs are kept organically, with a good chuck of care and love. It is also a place for people with a disability to receive care while working on the farm. This is where we get all our milk and cheese.
And for the lactose intolerant cappuccino lovers among us, we also have organic oat milk and soy milk! We charge 2o cent less for every cup of coffee with oat than a cup with cow milk. Why? For the production of 1 liter of cow’s milk, about 1000 liters of water is used, which equates to 130 liters of water per cappuccino. If you put oat milk in your cappuccino, you end up with 16.5 liters per cup. In reverence, with 130 liters of water you can shower for 20 minutes. Also, the production of oat milk emits 80% less greenhouse gases. That’s why every cup of co ee with oat milk will cost you 20 cents less than a cup with cow’s milk.
For more information see: zorgboerderijonsverlangen.nl/zuivel
Just like the rest of de Ceuvel, the Café interior was made out of upcycled materials for the most part.
Logic Works
Our neighbors of Logic Works have made a lot and done a lot of jobs for us in the Café and outside. Besides the beautiful boat banks on our terrace, they have also build the picknick tables of old wooden over plates and the massive tables made of trees felled in the Van Der Pekstraat, around the corner.
See also logic.works
Flesj lampjes
The small (LED) lamps in the Café are designed and made by Flesj. They're old lemonade bottles with a lamp inside
See also facebook.com/flesjlampen
In the middle of the Café, on the big pulley, hangs a huge lamp made out of a glass chalice and a grammophone bonnet. The lamp is designed by our neighbour Ulysses of the Valparaiso. The lamp is also for sale
See also facebook.com/glasinloodboot
Studio Valkenier
The Café was build by architect Wouter Valkenier, also known for Hanneke's Boom and Bret. The building consists almost entirely of upcycled materials, amongst which bollards from the harbour of Amsterdam, afore mentioned wooden oven plates, an old beachshack of the Scheveningen lifeguards, and a wooden floor from an old gym. From door stoppers to window frames, Wouter has managed to find almost everything somewhere.
See also: studiovalkenier.nl
Update: last year for a short while we used to serve goose meat for a short while (read more of this story below!). Right now though we're 100% vegetarian
The only meat we serve is from geese culled and hunted at Schiphol Airport. Since 2018 our kitchen is no longer 100% vegetarian. We have always said that we're a sustainable restaurant, and vegetarian food is the only logical sustainable food. There does exist some meat with which we can work, and that's the meat of the Kitchen of the Unwanted Animal. Starting as an art project, they have now grown into a small business. The company brings meats to the market that would otherwise be thrown out, such as My Little Pony Burgers, and Louisiana Crawfish (an invasive species in Amsterdam). In our kitchen we only use Schiphol geese. This is meat from geese that are being hunted because they would otherwise end up in the jet engines of planes at Schiphol airport. We serve the Schiphol Goose because this meat would otherwise be destroyed, and to shine a new light on the debate about animal cruelty, flying, and sustainability.
See also: http://dekeukenvanhetongewenstdier.nl/
We thought: why would we make trucks drive around filled with bottles containing mainly water and sugar, when we can install our own sparkling water tap, and we can use that to serve our drinks?
We make our own sodas with the syrups of Leslie Dronkers (Saru Soda). So no Coca-Cola or Fanta, but Elderflower, Ginger-lemon and Rhubarb!
For more information see: sarusoda.nl
To keep up with the rest of our menu, all of our liquors were brewed locally in Holland, except for our rum.
Every year the 32 metre-long sailing boat the Tres Hombres leaves the port of Amsterdam and sets sail to the Caribbean. They ship the best rum in the world to us!
For more information see:
fairtransport.eu
treshombres-rum.com
Nothing beats a good piece of cake, after a delicious meal, or just as a snack.
We serve cakes from Sharp Sharp and Taart op de Kaart.
Sharp Sharp
Renate and Frank started their pie business ‘Sharp Sharp’ to bring vegan, sugar-free and gluten-free pies to a larger audience. With dates, nuts, ahorn syrup and fruits, they somehow find a way of making the most delicious pies, that make you forgot uou are eating something vegan or sugar-free.
sharpsharp.nl
Taart op de Kaart
Are you a lover of simply good pastries without any fuss? Then you are in the right place with Taart op de Kaart of Barbara from Amsterdam. Barbara bakes as much as possible with pure and beautiful ingredients. She gets her inspiration from the French Patisserie and the German Kuchen. Taart op de Kaart bakes with the seasons: in summer with lots of fresh fruit and in autumn and winter with nuts, pears, apples and oranges.
taartopdekaart.nl
Our veggies have different sources, but all of them as local and sustainable as possible.
Mijn Stadstuin (‘My City Garden’)
In our quest for the stories behind our products, we have teamed up with Mijn Stadstuin. There is a special piece of land for De Ceuvel, where we are working with 25 volunteers to grow as many vegetables as possible, local and organic!
For more information see mijnstadstuin.nl
50/50 Green
On a 5 minutes bike ride from de Ceuvel is the Salvation Army's organic vegetable garden called 50/50 Green. Apart from supplying us with local organic seasonable vegetables, this initiative serves as an apprenticeship where people with poor job prospects get working experience, so that they can slowly rehabilitate in our society.
For more information see 5050-workcenter.nl/
Greenhouse on the roof
Together with Metabolic and the Nomad Farmers we have built a greenhouse on De Ceuvel. Here we are growing fresh herbs in a circular auquaponics system. It can’t be more local!
If, after all these vegetables and herbs, we need any more vegetables, we are buying our vegetables from other local organic farmers!
If you are interested to learn more about urban farming and would like to join working on Mijn Stadstuin, send an email to coen@cafedeceuvel.nl
All the grapes from our wines are grown organically and without pesticides. Some of our wines are also Vins Naturels (VN), or natural wines.
Some farmers choose to reuse old practices of the vineyard, which means there are minimal industrial interventions, they are working in harmony with nature and they add only a minimum of sulfite to their wine, and no other chemicals. Our importer ‘Vleck’ keeps personal contact with all of the farmers, and in this way we know exactly where our wines are coming from and how they were produced.
We work with only 'Old World' wines so they don't have to travel far. Besides this our housewine is delivered bag-in-box. You can imagine that a truck full of vacuum sealed winebags in square boxes has a much smaller carbon footprint than an equally large truck full of heavy glass bottles and lots of redundant space between the bottles because of their round shapes.
For more information see: vleck.nl
Our Kombucha is brewed by our former chef Nico, who left his job in our kitchen to pursue his dream of starting his own Kombucha brewery.
As far as we're concerned, Leave Your Sword Kombucha is the only tasty Kombucha on the market. It is also the only Kombucha that's raw and unpasteurized, and therefore chockful of probiotics.
Kombucha is a ancient chinese fermented sparkling drink based on tea. The first recorded use of kombucha comes from China in 221 BC during the Tsin Dinasty. A symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast ferment the "water-tea-sugar" mix into a refreshing & bubbly drink. The past few years, Kombucha has seen a worldwide resurgence in interest as part of a health craze.