Nobody publishes this information usefully. You get a price range on a listing site, three euro signs, and no sense of whether that means a quick meal or a long one.
So here is the arithmetic, worked properly, using the published menu at one indian restaurant in amsterdam as the example. Prices below are as listed at the time of writing and are worth checking before you book, but the structure they reveal holds regardless of small changes.
What a main course costs at an Indian restaurant in Amsterdam
Start with the mains, because that is where most of your bill lives.
Chicken mains run 22,50 to 25,00. Butter Chicken sits at 23,50, Chicken Tikka Masala at 22,50, and the chef’s signature Lucknowi Mughlai Murg, chicken breast stuffed with minced chicken and nuts, tops the section at 25,00.
Mutton runs 24,00 to 25,00, with Mutton Rogan Josh and Lahori Ghosht both at 25,00. Seafood runs 21,95 to 24,50, and interestingly the cheapest thing in that section is the Bengal Fish Curry at 21,95, a Kolkata style preparation using Catla fish.
Vegetarian mains run 15,50 to 22,00, which is the widest spread on the menu. That range is the first genuinely useful fact here, and I will come back to it.
Every main comes with a side of rice, which changes the arithmetic more than people expect.
Where the value actually sits on the menu
Three observations, and none of them are obvious from a price range.
The vegetarian section is where the menu is cheapest and deepest. Dal Makhni and Dal Tadka both sit at 15,50. Khatta Meetha Baingan, a chef’s signature, is 16,50. Baingan Bharta is 16,95. That is a full main course, with rice, for under seventeen euros in a room that also serves twenty five euro mutton.
The appetizers are not padding. Tandoor items run 11,50 to 14,95 for most dishes. Tandoori Lasooni Prawns at 14,95 and Tandoori Pomfret at 13,95 are both chef’s signatures. Ordering one of those instead of a second main is often the better spend.
The breads are where a table quietly overspends. Butter Roti is 3,75 and Malabar Parotta is 3,75, while a Cheese Chili Garlic Naan is 6,95. Ordering four stuffed naans adds nearly twenty five euros to a bill for something that is meant to be the supporting element.
Building a dinner for two at an Indian restaurant in Amsterdam Zuid
Here is what the numbers produce in practice.
Two people ordering one tandoor appetizer at around 13,50, two mains averaging 21,00, and two plain breads at 3,75 each lands at roughly 63 euros before drinks. Rice is already included with the mains.
Swap one main for a vegetarian dish at 15,50 to 16,95 and you are closer to 57. Order the Sizzling Chicken Platter at 19,95 to share as a starter instead and it goes up, though that dish arrives with jeera pulao and gravy already.
Cocktails are a flat 12,00 across the signature list, with alcohol free versions available on several of them. Desserts run 7,45 for Gulab Jamun up to 12,95 for the Sizzling Brownie.
So a proper dinner for two with a drink each sits somewhere in the eighty to ninety range. Worth knowing before you sit down rather than after.
What Indian food delivery costs compared with eating in
The menu prices are the menu prices, but the total is not.
Delivery adds platform fees on top, and it also changes which dishes make sense. Anything from the tandoor section arrives softer than it left, because a dry surface steams inside a sealed container. Ordering a 14,95 prawn dish for delivery is paying full price for a diminished version.
Curries and biryanis travel without complaint. Chicken Dum Biryani at 22,50 and Vegetable Biryani at 20,50 are both slow cooked in a sealed pot to begin with, so a further journey costs them nothing.
If you are arranging indian food delivery in the south of the city, that distinction is the difference between good value and wasted money. Order the robust dishes for delivery and save the tandoor section for the room.
The prices that tell you something about the kitchen
Cheap ingredients produce cheap dishes, and menus reveal effort if you read them.
Roomali Roti at 6,50 is stretched by hand until it is thin enough to see through and cooked on an inverted griddle. That is labour, not markup. Chicken Dum Biryani is slow cooked in a sealed pot rather than assembled from pre cooked components. Mushroom Galouti Kebab at 11,50 is a vegetarian dish given chef’s signature status, which is not a decision a kitchen makes casually.
The regional spread supports the same read. Kashmir, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Amritsar, Bengal, the south, Peshawar and Lahore all appear by name in the dish descriptions. That breadth costs a kitchen more in ingredients and technique than a single region menu does.
What else affects the bill
A kids section exists, with Chicken Curry and Rice at 8,95 and Dal Tadka and Rice at 7,95, which matters for family bookings.
Groups of six or more, including company dinners and celebrations, go through a quote request rather than the standard reservation form, so pricing for larger tables is arranged separately. If that applies to you, start the event enquiry earlier than you would a normal booking.
The kitchen opens 4PM to 10PM Monday to Wednesday, and noon to 10PM Thursday to Sunday, with weekend brunch in the midday window. Maasstraat 10 sits in Rivierenbuurt, between De Pijp and Zuidas.
How to spend well rather than spend less
The cheapest possible order here is not the best value order, and the most expensive one is not either.
The best value sits in taking one dish from the tandoor section, one vegetarian main, one meat or seafood main, and plain breads rather than stuffed ones. That gives you the kitchen’s technique, its regional range, and its best priced section, all on the same table, and it costs less than two premium mains would.
Read the menu for what is difficult to make rather than what is familiar. The prices, once you know what is behind them, are considerably more informative than any rating.