The 6 best brown cafés in Amsterdam, ranked

The genuine articles

1. Café Chris, Bloemstraat — running since 1624, the oldest café in the Jordaan, and still mostly locals on a Tuesday. Small, wooden, no food beyond bar snacks. 2. Café 't Smalle, Egelantiersgracht — a former jenever distillery from 1786 with a canal terrace that's genuinely one of the best in the city. Gets busy but the crowd is mixed. 3. In 't Aepjen, Zeedijk 1 — one of only two remaining wooden houses in the centre, dating to around 1550. The name and the monkey theme come from sailors paying in monkeys in the 17th century.

These three have kept the trade-menu of jenever, Dutch pilsners on tap, and bar-snacks like bitterballen and old cheese. None of them do coffee drinks with syrup or serve brunch.

The still-honest four to six

4. Café Hoppe, Spui — since 1670, extremely central, and yes it gets tourists, but the standing crowd at the bar on a Friday evening is still overwhelmingly Dutch. 5. De Sluyswacht, Jodenbreestraat — the leaning wooden lock-keeper's house from 1695 opposite the Rembrandthuis. Terrace on the water. 6. Café Papeneiland, Prinsengracht — the corner spot from 1642 with the famous apple pie; ranked last only because the pie tourism has changed the crowd mix.

Explicitly excluded: anywhere with English-language sandwich boards, anywhere in the Red Light District tourist bars, and anywhere calling itself a "traditional Dutch pub" in Google. If the beer list is longer than the jenever list, it's a modern craft bar in a brown café's skin.