Fun & Famous

WHY THIS BAKERY MUST STAY

My love and I lived for years on Eerste Helmersstraat in Amsterdam-West. It is a street so long that there are just as many people living there as in an average village, so when you were in a taxi that reached the Overtoom, he wanted to know at what height he should turn. “At bakery De Rond,” we would say, and a bit of an Amsterdam taxi driver would know enough. Bakery A.M. de Rond is, after all, a household name in Amsterdam.

Every day, the tastiest pizza croissants are available. I forget everything around me when you wave your round cheese croissant under my nose, and I can't leave their shop without an apple pie and the chocolate pepernoten. Just for that last one, I'm going to send Josselin here today because she is a sucker for pepernoten.

I once dedicated a whole foreword in Marie Claire to this baker. I described that I revisited my old neighborhood and that this all led to a culinary trip down memory lane with pea soup from butcher Res, a Turkish pizza, and of course the wood-fired pizza from Forno and a piece of apple pie from A.M. de Rond. Honestly, I heard somewhere in my head Kate Moss whispering that ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, but I didn't believe a single pepernoot of that. What did Kate know about it? After all, she had never tasted the apple pie from A.M. de Rond.

And now, dear readers, this phenomenon is going to close. Not because sales are declining or because the baker has lost interest. No, the best man is being bullied out by the neighborhood. Because they are ‘bothered’ that he is kneading our dough at eleven o'clock at night and turning on the oven. They are also bothered that during one of the tropical summer nights he had left the bakery door ajar. Shame!

“After all, she had never tasted the apple pie from A.M. de Rond.”

Neighbor Youp van ’t Hek (the father of this cutie) calls the baker on Good Morning Netherlands ‘a wimp’ who should not let himself be bullied out, because Youp also loves the cheese croissants and the chocolate pepernoten. It can't be any other way.

“He lets himself be bullied by people who are not from Amsterdam and cannot appreciate the values of a city or everything that comes with a city.” We are talking about the sweetest little bakery in Amsterdam.

So if you happen to be near the Overtoom, stop for a moment at the corner of Rhijnvis Feithstraat, shout very loudly ‘boo’ at the angry neighbors, give two thumbs up to the baker, and especially take a few apple pies with you. As long as it still can...