The Orangery

This gorgeous museum café is located right in the middle of the Hortus Botanicus. Surrounded by numerous rare and exotic plants, it is one of the most beautiful outdoor cafés in Amsterdam. During the day, visitors to the Hortus can enjoy a delicious cup of coffee, Holtkamp pastries, and tasty sandwiches and salads. All of the dishes on the menu consist of pure organic ingredients. The Orangery is also an attractive venue for exclusive parties, receptions, and dinners and it is possible to hold meetings or give presentations there. Moreover, since January 2008, the city of Amsterdam allows couples to exchange wedding vows in the Hortus' Orangery.

Click HERE for more information about prices, possibilities, and the availability of rooms in the Orangery.

On request by the Hortus Botanicus the design artist Claudy Jongstra made a series of wall coverings for the Oranjerie. The work is called 'Capitulare de Villis', after a proclamation of Charles the Great (747-814) on the cultivation of herbs and food plants. The proclamation is still used as a blueprint for contemporary horti. Specially grown plants, listed in it, now color the wool and silk in the artpiece.

The wall coverings are not only beautiful, they also provide an auditive inmprovement as well as sustainable isolation for the museumcafe.

The Orangery is a centuries-old national monument. In fact, tropical plants were already cultivated in wooden greenhouses on this spot in 1715. The current Orangery building was built in 1875 as a lecture hall. The name Orangery refers to the early functian as a storage place for citrus plants (in particular, orange trees) during winter time.