Discover Benelux | Summer Special | Amsterdam Oost Highlights
With its magnificent products and menu, as well as being located at one of Amsterdam’s best spots, it is no surprise that The Harbour Club is one of the city’s top-notch venues.
Class, glamour and exquisite food TEXT: JULIËN L’ORTYE | PHOTOS: THE HARBOUR CLUB
The Harbour Club, located next to the water in Amsterdam East, is a restaurant like no other. Based in one of the best spots of the Dutch capital, away from the city’s bustle, with a terrace that abuts the water and thus brings the possibility of arriving by boat, it is no surprise this place is loved by the upper echelons of Amsterdam society. While talking to general manager Joost Verhoeven, there is one description that says it all: ‘where true food meets glamour’. If you take a look inside (or at the pictures), you can definitely see what he means. Once you set foot in the hip restaurant, the enormous 16-metre-long mural by Italian neo-pop artist Selwyn Senatori catches your eye immediate46 | Issue 44 | August 2017
ly. In front of this impressive painting there are several booths: leather, round four-person seats that have a very classy look and feel. To be fair, The Harbour Club breathes classiness all the way, with, for example, the immense fish display case and the meat lockers that are both visible for the guests. Verhoeven: “Freshness is really important to us, so we really want our guests to notice that as well. Everything and everyone that is active, does their work in sight of our customers.” However, you would not expect all this when you drive up The Harbour Club’s huge parking terrain. Given the huge dimensions – of both the parking space and the restaurant itself, with its
2,200 square metres of glamorous dining pleasure – the issue of feeling like some kind of factory is always luring. Verhoeven is very aware of that and immediately soothes these worries, saying: “We do not just want to hand over the menus and serve our guests their food – quite the contrary. We try to add some extra entertainment to their nights. For example, by booking a DJ or a saxophonist, but also by filleting the fish at the table, or preparing steak tartare in front of the guests at their tables.” Apart from that, it is the restaurant’s exquisite (and rather extraordinary) service that makes sure it stands out in the crowd. In the words of the general manager, it is ‘a bit un-Dutch, quite American’.