Where to eat in Den Haag

December 28, 2014 9:57 AM

Tomorrow my husband and I are going to Den Haag/The Hague in the Netherlands for a night. Where should we eat in the evening and what should we see in our afternoon there? We're going to the Rothko exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum so we have that covered.

We're not fussy about food except I don't like seafood. We would like a nice dinner somewhere in the middle of the city, doesn't need to be fancy or expensive (although we can do that too) but reasonably paced service would be nice (we're not into late nights or sitting around for hours nibbling on random bits of food every now and then). Even takeout food is possible as long as it's worthwhile for some reason. Oh and we're totally into beer if there's somewhere good to go for a drink.

We also have a few hours free after we arrive in the afternoon and currently not much planned to do. We're driving in so are mobile, like walking and biking and looking at things (and art! and cheese!), but I'm not really into shopping or people watching. Worst case scenario we'll just wander round and look at the place since we've never been before, but I assume there's something more fun to do too.

We're staying somewhere in the middle of town. I can look it up if it's relevant, but we're usually pretty good at getting around.

posted by shelleycat to Travel & Transportation around The Hague, Netherlands (9 answers total)

Best answer: Madurodam: A neat little place that has all of Holland in miniature. It's cooler than it sounds!

Vredespaleis: Where the international court of justice is. It looks like you can get a guided tour and a little bit of history.

Escher in het Paleis

Mauritshuis, though you might be museumed out!

For dinner, I recommend seeking out some rijsttafel if you haven't already in your time in Holland. The place we used to go is only take out and I can't find it now, but it should be relatively simple to seek out a good place!
posted by theantikitty at 10:13 AM on December 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Knossos and Athene Palace are both good Greek restaurants. I've heard that Ngon, a Vietnamese restaurant near Knossos, is also good.

The Hague is an excellent place to get Indonesian food. I recommend looking through this list (iens.nl is similar to Yelp). Restaurant Blauw, one of the best-regarded Indonesian restaurants in Amsterdam, has a location in The Hague.

Lebkov & Sons is a good lunch spot.

Mauritshuis and Escher in Het Paleis are both great, and the area around Het Paleis is nice for strolling, if the weather cooperates.

Speaking of weather, if you don't mind some cold and wind, you could take a walk on the beach at Scheveningen and visit the sculpture museum Beelden aan Zee.

Some good places to go for beer are Het Brouwcafe (which is basically between the Gementeemuseum and Scheveningen), The Fiddler, and Restaurant Rootz.
posted by neushoorn at 10:44 AM on December 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I'm not much of a restaurant expert, but if you're puttering around Centrum, there is a little stand outside the Stadhuis, across the street from Pathé Spuimarkt, which has the #24 tastiest oliebollen in the Netherlands, for one shiny euro. (They were #10 last year!) Can't go wrong with hot fresh oliebollen while you wander!
posted by sldownard at 11:48 AM on December 28, 2014 [2 favorites]

I've marked all these as favorites because whenever I visit my friends who life in Voorburg (adjacent to Den Haag) we eat rijstafel, go to Scheveningen, eat olibolies and/or pannekoken, and go to the Escher museum and the Mauristhuis. If you don't like seafood, then Indonesian or savory pannekoken (like a cross between pancakes and pizza with toppings) are the obvious next choice!
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 2:15 PM on December 28, 2014

Not in the middle of the city, but if you get the chance and like Nepali/Indian food I would strongly recommend Little Nepal in Rijswijk. Delicious and very friendly. (may want to call ahead to check if they aren't fully booked )

This is the one place I wish I hadn't waited to discover until the week I moved away.
posted by HFSH at 2:42 PM on December 28, 2014

Milú in the city centre is the newish place we all go to for upscale snacks and small plates, and has good beer. (I work in DH)
posted by wingless_angel at 3:00 PM on December 28, 2014

I liked Spize, which is a Thai fusion place with a casual atmosphere. It's next to the Filmhuis, which also has a restaurant of its own.
posted by rjs at 11:39 PM on December 28, 2014

Response by poster: This is so awesome and useful, thanks! I'll come back and update with what we did when we get back because it depends how much time we have. It looks like we'll have to go back again some time to visit properly.
posted by shelleycat at 11:56 PM on December 28, 2014

Response by poster: So we ended up getting over there a it later than hoped so there didn't end up being time our first afternoon for much more than grabbing some Oliebollen. They were so good we went back for more the next day. Then we had a really nice dinner at Restaurant Blauw. The second day was the Rothko exhibit, which was wonderful and worth the trip. We really wanted to also go to the Mauritshuis but ended up running out of time. The museum queues were rather long, it seemed to be a popular thing to do yesterday, and I forgot to buy eTickets online ahead of time. So that's on our list for next time.

Thanks for all the ideas, it made our short last-minute trip away work really well.
posted by shelleycat at 6:02 AM on December 31, 2014