{"id":84883,"date":"2026-03-08T09:34:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T08:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/?p=84883"},"modified":"2026-05-08T10:36:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:36:47","slug":"cafe-bern-cheese-fondue-brown-cafe-new-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/restaurants\/cafe-bern-kaasfondue-bruin-cafe-nieuwmarkt\/","title":{"rendered":"Caf\u00e9 Bern on the Nieuwmarkt: 47 years of cheese fondue and no concessions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few places in the city have remained as consistently themselves as Caf\u00e9 Bern. While the Nieuwmarkt changed completely in nearly five decades, from raw urban neighborhood full of uncertainty surrounding the subway construction to tourist attraction, the caf\u00e9 continued to do what it does best. Cheese fondue, prime rib, spaghetti. And an atmosphere you can't fake with an interior designer.<\/h2>\n

Helmut Winzeler founded Caf\u00e9 Bern on August 26, 1978, at precisely the time when the Nieuwmarkt was not an attractive place to start a business. The neighborhood between the end of the Zeedijk and the affected streets around the subway construction was considered a place you preferred to avoid. Winzeler saw it differently. He opened a brown caf\u00e9 with a Swiss heart there, and the public found him. After an eight-month renovation, it reopened in April 2015, but its character remained intact.<\/p>\n

\"bern-cafe-amsterdam_1\"<\/p>\n

The building on the Nieuwmarkt combines three things in one: brown caf\u00e9, restaurant and a small hotel. Dark wood, the murmur of people sitting close together at tables, the smell of melted cheese. On the walls, small art exhibitions alternate, recently hanging work as part of \u2018The April Bags\u2019 from 2026. It's not a gallery, it's a caf\u00e9 that also makes space for art. That's the difference.<\/p>\n

The Parool has named Caf\u00e9 Bern the best fondue restaurant in town several years in a row, and anyone who has eaten there once understands why.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reservations are made exclusively by phone. No form, no app, just call. That suits a caf\u00e9 that has never tried to move with every new trend. The Nieuwmarkt is the Nieuwmarkt, and Caf\u00e9 Bern is Caf\u00e9 Bern. For nearly fifty years, the same address, the same dish, the same quirkiness. That's not nostalgia, that's just knowing who you are.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Er zijn weinig plekken in de stad die zo consequent zichzelf zijn gebleven als Caf\u00e9 Bern. Terwijl de Nieuwmarkt in bijna vijf decennia compleet veranderde, van rauwe stadsbuurt vol onzekerheid rondom de metroaanleg tot toeristische trekpleister, bleef het caf\u00e9 doen waar het goed in is. Kaasfondue, prime rib, spaghetti. En een sfeer die je niet … <\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":84949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"district":[9],"class_list":["post-84883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-restaurants","district-amsterdam-centrum"],"acf":{"slider":[84926,84927],"fotograaf":"","editor":"","video":"","google_360":"","instagram_code":"","subregel":"Het Parool kroont dit bruine caf\u00e9 keer op keer tot beste fonduerestaurant van de stad","new_in_town":false,"featured_item":false,"beste_van_amsterdam":false,"homepage_carousel":false,"cord_A":"4.9010014","cord_B":"52.3724839","introductie_tekst":"Caf\u00e9 Bern bestaat al bijna een halve eeuw en doet nog steeds precies wat het altijd deed: kaasfondue serveren in een klassiek bruin caf\u00e9 aan de Nieuwmarkt. Geen online reserveringen, geen formeel restaurantgedoe, gewoon bellen en komen. Oprichter Helmut Winzeler koos in 1978 bewust voor deze buurt, en dat eigenzinnige karakter is er nooit uitgegaan.","rubriek":"Locatie","locatie_event":null,"naam_locatie":"Caf\u00e9 Bern","adres":"Nieuwmarkt 9","stad":"Amsterdam","website":"https:\/\/www.cafebern.com\/","telefoon_nummer":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84883"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84929,"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84883\/revisions\/84929"}],"acf:attachment":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84927"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84883"},{"taxonomy":"district","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amsterdamnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/district?post=84883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}