One of the little things in life can make me very happy is coffee. At home the sound of the coffee machine can make me smile instantly already. At work, where we serve fantastic barista style coffee from a professional Italian coffee machine I smile even more. But also at my grandmother’s house, her good old filter coffee is tasty too! Coffee is such a comforting, homey and beautiful product. I love to go out for coffee, or get some work done in a place they serve good coffee. Recently I found a new favourite in the Northern part of Amsterdam: The Coffee Virus. This whole area of Amsterdam is hip and happening, and places as De Tolhuistuin, The Eye Film Center and A’dam Tower with Lookout Point are just a stone’s throw away from The Coffee Virus. Scroll down to find out more.
The Coffee Virus is situated in the A Lab building in Amsterdam-Noord. Yes, that’s right, on the Northern shores, abóve the IJ lake. Far, difficult, boring? Nope! It’s right in the middle of Amsterdam! From Central Station Amsterdam it’s less than 8 minutes, take the ferry (fun to do and it’s free!) and walk 2 minutes and here you are: The Coffee Virus. The A Lab building is the previous laboratorium building of Shell multinational. Nowadays it’s home to offices and workspace for many (freelance) creatives and technologists but also companies, as well the building is home to the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (AHK – the ‘Amsterdam School of Art’), and home to the Breitner Academie (visual arts education). An excellent building to start a coffee and lunch place, that’s what the owners of The Coffee Virus must have thought. They also cater meetings and big (business or students) groups. I recently was at the Coffee Virus and loved it!
The interior of The Coffee Virus at A Lab is what you expect from Amsterdam-North: creative, sustainable, second hand, industrial, different and a bit edgy.
Organic carrot cakes and banana bread (2,10 euro). Great with coffee and excellent as ‘get-work-done-fuel’.
Besides delicious coffee (espresso 2,05 euro, cappuccino 2,25 euro) from different blends and different coffee breweries, they serve lunch here too. Deluxe sandwiches as ‘coffee rubbed porkbelly with spinach, goat cheese, spread, dates, chilli and lemon zest’ (6,90 euro) or salads like ‘nuts paste with cauliflower, spinach, orange marmalade, coffee pecan and chilli’ (7,30 euro) or toasties as ‘Chorizo, aged and young melted cheese, onion, tomato and sambal’ (4,30 euro), panini’s with ‘melted chicken, cheddar, tomato and sriracha sauce’ and one with ‘red pesto, young cheese, capers and spinach’ (both 6,30 euro).
Coffee and carrot cake to keep you going!
Thee different blends to choose from: The left one is The Barn, a coffee brewery from Berlin, Germany. The one in the middle is Singe Estate Coffee (Maasdijk, the Netherlands) and the one right is from Bocca (Kerkstraat, Amsterdam).
Delicious panini with melted chicken, tomato, cheddar and sriracha sauce. Read here an article about how much I love sriracha sauce. They serve all the toasties and panini’s at The Coffee Virus with their delicious homemade ginger aioli, by the way, which is also for sale ’to try this at home’, as well as their imperial coffee stout, masala chai or coffee beans.
The Facts
The Coffee Virus at A Lab building, Amsterdam North (click here for directions) is open Monday until Friday from 9am until 4.30pm. There is a second location of The Coffee Virus at the Amsterdam science park, inside an old shipping container (Startup Village).
*Note: I have not been asked, paid or invited. It was my own idea to write about The Coffee Virus. All images are mine.
