The yearly overview of everything that happened related to veganism and animal rights in Amsterdam! New restaurant openings, new vegan products in the supermarket and many protests and activist events. You remember the Vegan Amsterdam Festival I organized in summer? A beautiful day!
Two trends I noticed in general this year is a significant improvement in the vegan options at University of Amsterdam, and a renewed momentum at the level of animal rights activism in Amsterdam. More on that below, continue reading for an overview of everything which went down in 2025!
New vegan places
Just as an indication, Happy Cow currently is listing 44 full vegan places in Amsterdam, last year at this moment the number was 53 so a small decrease. In total Happy Cow is currently listing 514 vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants in town.
A new favourite lunchspot Counter opened in April at Czaar Peterstraat. With decades of cooking experience in the catering business, combined with a fresh dedication to vegan values, this family business will charm you for sure.
Café Gilde started out in September at OT301. Here kitchen professionals Bob and Cat joined forces, offering an all vegan menu of creative and affordable food, in a relaxed, inclusive and cosy setting.
Vegan Surinamese restaurant The Old Soul quietly opened a second location this year, at Sciencepark! Here The Old Soul Cafe is catering to the many students and staff of University of Amsterdam.
Experimental vegan fine dining restaurant Testtafel moved this year into the restaurant space of art centre Mediamatic (which had their own vegan restaurant in there for years as well). Before, Testtafel was located together with vegan people’s kitchen De Sering, close to Sloterdijk. The move went so well that De Sering also started out at Mediamatic, while the original location near Sloterdijk remains as well! Visit Sering Centraal for affordable lunch six days a week, near the Amsterdam public library!
De Nieuwe Mensa is a very inspiring project, launched by a group of students at University of Amsterdam. They set out to offer affordable, plant-based food for students at the university, and made it happen! They are at Roeterseiland all weekdays. Also the UvA new library building became more vegan-friendly this year, with the introduction of all vegan food vending machine Wonderbot.
Vegetarian place Peppi Deli (mostly take-out but some seating) opened beginning of the year in De Pijp. Wrap Lab(vegetarian with many vegan options) opened up at the former location of long term vegetarian street food place Vleesch Noch Visch.
Last year the location of Soil in Amsterdam East closed (their restaurant at Bilderdijkstraat is still there though), as well as three locations of vegan health food concept Wild & The Moon.
Vegetarian favourites Vegitalian and Chez Nina closed down as well in 2025.
Products
Activism
2025 saw a clear increase in the amount of animal rights initiatives and protests! In May RAAF got launched, a recurring event where people experienced in animal rights advocacy present their best insights.
Activism against foie gras is back in Amsterdam! A few years ago a campaign by Active for Justice started. This year there was an increase in protests, aiming at various restaurants in town which still have this cruelty on their menu. In Amsterdam Partij voor de Dieren achieved that the city of Amsterdam will officially discourage the use of foie gras!
Dutch Anti-fur Movement continued to do more pressure campaigning against fur.
In summer National Animal Rights Day or short NARD took place again in Amsterdam for the 5th year. This international event aims to commemorate the non-human animal victims, as well as celebrate the progress made for animal rights so far.
In September local activists all joined forces to protest multiple days at an art installation at Oosterpark which used live animals.
At Dierendag animal welfare organisation Wakker Dier organized a big demo against factory farming. Local vegans once again teamed up together and participated as a vegan block, carrying a banner denouncing all animal slaughter.
Various groups like Vegan Future of Amsterdam, We The Free, Anonymous for the Voiceless and Neon Protest were doing vegan outreach in Amsterdam last year, all in their own way.
Coming up
There’s something really exciting coming up real soon! Initiated by Vegan Amsterdam and organized and supported by a bunch of people and organizations in Amsterdam, the above event is meant to bring the vegan community in Amsterdam together at the start of the new year! Hope to meet you there!
Other news, for the past year we’ve been working behind the scenes at a new website. This one will be more user-friendly, with some new features I can’t wait to show you when it’s done! It’s almost ready, coming soooon!
Happy new year to all of y’all! Be welcome in this wonderful vegan community, find your way to make a difference for the animals, keep inspiring each other!
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