Founded to keep what lasts
Cercle des Plus Anciens Restaurants du Monde
A circle of places to eat and drink that have opened their doors for generations. Places where the beer taps, the tables and the stories are older than anyone sitting down there today.
Meet the membersAbout the Cercle
The Cercle des Plus Anciens Restaurants du Monde brings together restaurants, cafés and beer merchants with a long, unbroken history. Every member carries the round plaque with plate and cutlery: a sign that people have eaten, drunk and talked here for centuries.
What the members share is not a menu but an attitude: hospitality as a tradition, in a building that has watched its city change around it. The Cercle wants to make these places visible and pass their stories on.
Where it began
An initiative of the Friends of Bierhandel De Pijp
The Cercle des Plus Anciens Restaurants du Monde was founded by the Friends of Bierhandel De Pijp, at Gaffelstraat 90 in Rotterdam. From the long tables of their city's oldest restaurant, they seek out the places that have lasted just as long.
Bierhandel De Pijp
Open the weathered wooden door in a side street off the Nieuwe Binnenweg and you enter another world. There are no tables of your own: you sit down at long wooden tables, next to whoever happens to be there. There is no menu; the dishes are chalked on blackboards, and the open kitchen stands in the middle of the room. Some 70 square metres seat 68 guests.
The house calls itself an etablissement voor ordentelijk, noodzakelijk en vooral ook nuttig maatschappelijk verkeer: an establishment for orderly, necessary and above all useful social exchange. For decades it was listed in the phone book simply as "the beer merchant". Three books have been written about De Pijp; the first two marked its 90th and 100th anniversaries, in 1988 and 1998.
De Pijp has always had strong ties with students. Young Rotterdammers studying in Utrecht came here before the war, and the Utrecht society Roterodamum still installs its new members here every year. When the occupier banned the Rotterdamsch Studenten Corps in 1941, the society moved its gatherings to De Pijp. Every year on 4 May, the students who fell in the war are remembered here.
Why "De Pijp"?
Three explanations go round: a pijp (pipe) was once a measure of volume for beer bottles; the room was long and narrow with a bend at the back, shaped like a pipe; and such narrow buildings were popularly called pijpela.
- 1898
G.J. Spruyt opens a beer business on the Geldersekade, also serving as Heineken's agent and bottler. Barges deliver the casks; in his own premises he pours beer himself.
- 1930s
Jan van der Valk, who started out as a tapster's boy, takes over. Boatmen pick up a bucket of beer before setting sail, and students discover that a bucket is cheaper than a glass.
- 1940
The bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May ends the Geldersekade years. Van der Valk and his son Cor rent an empty bicycle shed in the Gaffelstraat and salvage the usable tables and chairs from the rubble.
- after 1945
De Pijp flourishes under Cor van der Valk.
- 1982
Rob van der Wel and John Mook take over the restaurant.
- 2012
Jilles van Werkhoven becomes the owner.
- 2026
Morris van Dijk takes up the baton as the new owner. A new chapter begins at the long tables, in the same house and with the same hospitality.
Sources: bierhandeldepijp.nl, Wikisage, De Oud-Rotterdammer.
The members
In order of founding.
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1750
De Rooden Hoed
Antwerp · Belgium
Grand café at the foot of the cathedral, in the historic centre of Antwerp. It is regarded as the oldest restaurant in the city. See the visit.
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1814
Café L'Espérance
Leiden · Netherlands
Traditional Dutch brown café on the Kaiserstraat, close to the university. One of the oldest cafés in Leiden, with a long tradition of students and royal guests.
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1898
Bierhandel De Pijp
Rotterdam · Netherlands
The oldest restaurant in Rotterdam, at Gaffelstraat 90 since 1940. It began on the Geldersekade and rose again in an old bicycle shed after the bombing. Home of the Friends who founded the Cercle. Read the story.
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1954
Woo Ping
Leiden · Netherlands
The oldest Chinese restaurant in Leiden, in the Diefsteeg in the old town since 1954. A family business, now run by the third generation, with a kitchen that brings Chinese and Indonesian cooking together. See the visit.
Photo report ·
A visit to Leiden
On 29 October 2026 the Friends of Bierhandel De Pijp from the Gaffelstraat in Rotterdam travelled to Leiden to visit two houses: Café L'Espérance and Woo Ping, the oldest Chinese restaurant in the city.
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At half past six the table is ready in Café L'Espérance.
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The plaque is handed over, with the whole party as witnesses.
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Joining forces, they put the plaque on the wall.
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Its place: among the old photographs of L'Espérance.
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At Woo Ping, too, the plaque now hangs on the wall.
Photo report ·
A visit to Antwerp
On 25 April 2024 the Friends of Bierhandel De Pijp travelled by coach from Rotterdam to Antwerp. At De Rooden Hoed, regarded as the oldest restaurant in the city, the plaque of the Cercle found its place on the wall.
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By coach from Rotterdam: De Pijp hits the road.
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De Rooden Hoed, in the shadow of the Cathedral of Our Lady.
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The plaque is presented to De Rooden Hoed.
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Craftsmanship: first a generous bead of sealant.
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Then onto the wall, next to La Chouffe. Thumbs up!
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One last firm press: this plaque isn't going anywhere.
The plaque
Every member hangs the round enamel plaque on its wall: a white plate with fork and knife, encircled by the name of the Cercle in wine-red letters, with the name of the house in the centre.
The design is deliberately simple. Plate and cutlery stand for what has stayed the same all these centuries: a laid table and someone to welcome you.