Rotterdam cocktail city – beyond the Pornstar Martini

Rotterdam: port city with a rough character. With an edge, in other words. But also a breeding ground for creativity, genuine hospitality without the frills and, as of 2017, rightly deserving to be called a cocktail city.

words: Ingmar Voerman > this article previously appeared on ingmardrinkt.nl

Rotterdam is also the city of bartenders who do not make an overly big deal about cocktails; the term ‘mixologist’ is rarely heard here. Rotterdam bartender David Trampe – who, ironically enough, works behind the bar at Tales & Spirits in Amsterdam – says about this: “And if someone uses terms like that, we simply put them back on the train to Amsterdam”. Of course, cocktails are also a luxurious thing in 010. After all, a good cocktail consists of good spirits, hard work and beautiful ingredients, and those simply cost more than a flute or a glass of Chilean plonk.

There is a Dutch cocktail scene, of which Amsterdam and Rotterdam are the two pillars. Amsterdam is still the undisputed market leader. The city (and my beloved home base) is well supplied with luxury hotel cocktail bars, as well as legendary, internationally acclaimed bars such as Tales & Spirits, Door 74 and Vesper Bar. Let’s not leave the youngest addition, Porem, unmentioned. But Rotterdam is now gaining serious momentum. From speak-easy bars to rooftop bars to lively little cocktail bars, you will find it all there on the Maas, and it is all good. The level of cocktails in Rotterdam has far surpassed the ‘tacky’ everybody’s-favourite Pornstar Martini.

The Pornstar Martini

There is nothing wrong with a good Pornstar (vodka, vanilla, passion fruit, lime, a shot of prosecco on the side), by the way. And if a guest orders one, you simply make it without any airs, perhaps suggesting a comparable cocktail in a very casual manner. And if the guest is not interested, you just make that hundred-thousandth Pornstar from your illustrious bartending career with your biggest smile. (Since I am not averse to a little self-deprecation, here is a lovely photo of me about to devour an old-fashioned Pornstar. At Vesper Bar. In Amsterdam.)

The Pornstar is just a somewhat worn-out cocktail, and the flavour combination of vanilla and passion fruit deserves to be placed, alongside mango and chilli pepper, in the display cabinet of cocktail clichés from the nineties and noughties. Rotterdam and its public embraced this cocktail (Douglas Ankrah, Townhouse London, 2002) so firmly that it became uncomfortable, but Amsterdam can certainly do its bit too. Few bars in the Netherlands still have it on the menu, yet it remains one of the most frequently ordered cocktails. Every weekend—what am I saying, every day.

Enough chatter about vanilla, vodka and passion fruit; let’s talk about bars. Six cocktail bars in Rotterdam that are more than worth a visit.

Dr.

The city’s best cocktail bar ever since its opening in January 2012: the hidden (speak-easy) cocktail practice with the telling name Dr. Here, the doctors (bartenders), dressed in white doctor’s coats, help their patients (guests) with their complaints by means of suitable medication, potions and elixirs (cocktails). The doctors are bartenders you can count among the best in the Netherlands without hesitation, led by half-man, half-tattoo Chi-ho Ta. The cocktails are ridiculously good, from flavour to presentation to glassware. The bar is the brainchild of cocktail guru Arno van Eijmeren, who also runs Barrel Proof Cocktail Boutique in the port city.

Dr. – Alberto Matallana – photo courtesy of citinerary

Dr. is hidden behind a door on a fairly nondescript street in the Scheepvaartkwartier, identifiable only by the golden plaque with a pharmacy snake next to the bell. The practice is located in a building that once housed a hostess bar where women of questionable reputation entertained dockworkers and businessmen. The atmosphere of the bar and its interior evoke bygone times, say the early 20th century. Lots of antiques, an incredibly cool antique bar and plenty of anatomical paraphernalia. Everything is just a little different; it is intimate, it is theatre, you get a glass of punch upon arrival, a briefing on the house rules, and the bar snacks are boiled eggs.

Noah

Noah Rotterdam – Hani Asfdaai © Jim Ellam

The cosiest cocktail bar in the Netherlands is called Noah, and you will find it in Rotterdam Blaak, in the Witte Huis. The ark is run by Hani Asfdaai and Erikson Almeida Lima, well-known names in Rotterdam’s cocktail scene, with infectious enthusiasm and a feel for hospitality. Noah is a cocktail living room where cocktails are not overcomplicated—but good drinks are made. There is certainly a preference for tiki cocktails here, and they are highly recommended. But the boys can also shake classic cocktails and everything in between out of their sleeves. And if you ask nicely, they will genuinely make you a Pornstar without complaint. Really.

Noah is not afraid to serve its own twists on guilty pleasures. Tom Cruise does not hang on the wall for nothing. The ‘Sorry darling, ‘t Loopuyt’ hospitality evenings have become legendary. Noah should certainly be praised for building a bridge between bartenders from Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Stirr

Stirr -Can Kizilca © Jim Ellam

Stirr is a speak-easy-style cocktail bar on Eendrachtsweg, just around the corner from Witte de Withstraat. The bar is bartender/entrepreneur Can Kizcila’s boyhood dream, which he decided to pursue himself after years of working in various bars. He does this together with his friends and fellow bartenders Sven Brokaar, Larry Solana and prodigy Murat Cakir. And with success: less than a year after opening, the bar had already been named best new cocktail bar by both Esquire and hospitality trade magazine Entree.

You can easily walk straight past this bar, and after the door you first have to climb a staircase that still gives me nightmares. The bar occupies two floors, on the second and third floors of the building. It is intimate, dark and raw, with plenty of cosy seats and corners and huge windows facing the street. It rocks here, and the bar breathes the spirit of its owners. You drink unusual cocktails made with unusual spirits and plenty of homemade ingredients. The quality is top-notch, as are the glassware, garnishes and, importantly, the service, conviviality and atmosphere of the bar.

The Suicide Club

The Suicide Club is one of the coolest things to be found in Rotterdam. Just a stone’s throw from the central station, you will find this rooftop bar at the top of an office tower, accessed via a back door and a lift. You step out of the lift right in the middle of the kitchen. The Suicide Club is a restaurant, cocktail bar and club all in one. From spring onwards, weather permitting, it also has an absurdly green rooftop terrace. It all feels very urban, cosmopolitan and un-Dutch, which is precisely what the creative hospitality minds at Mess had in mind. The bar looks truly beautiful and is staffed by a strong bar team.

But ‘The best cocktail bar in town’, as the bar declares on its own website, may be slightly overambitious, although there is nothing wrong with healthy ambition. The bar offers cool, original cocktails made with plenty of in-house craftsmanship and culinary influences, by staff with a smile—special mention for the ever-cheerful bartender Caco Mosan.

Ayla

Ayla Rotterdam – Niels van Wouwe without a head © Jesaja Hizkia

Ayla is a brand-new establishment from Mess, open from early morning until late at night, with a Mediterranean cuisine spanning from Spain to Morocco as its starting point. A kind of gastronomic tapas in a very chill, international and accessible setting. The bar and kitchen are constantly working in tandem, and vice versa. Food pairing at its finest. The bar team consists of experienced bartenders such as Micheal John Straatman, Marie Louise Taal and Niels van Wouwe. They also work at The Suicide Club and train a new army of bartenders themselves, from free-pouring to knowledge tests. Behind the bar, Ayla works with its own distillates (gin, genever, vodka), distilled at Rutte in beautiful Dordrecht. These are made with infusions in mind, and behind the bar they happily infuse away.

Ayla Rotterdam © Jesaja Hizkia

The team infuses its spirits, which arrive in batches, with Mediterranean herbs and fruit. This produces cool, innovative cocktails. There are also spirits that are not distilled in-house but are given a treatment, such as a daiquiri made with rosemary-infused rhum agricole. They are also very fond of fortified wines such as sherry and vermouth, Italian bitter liqueurs and practically every product from Italy’s Cocchi. This is a bar with an entirely new vision of spirits and cocktails. It is also worth mentioning that the cocktails are served in smaller-than-usual glasses and, partly as a result, cost only E 7,50 each. Another plus: within walking distance of the central station and The Suicide Club.

NY Basement

NY Basement – Dyon Seedorf and Daryl Liew-On – photo courtesy of Gers!

The basement of the iconic Hotel New York at the tip of Zuid was transformed last year into an incredibly cool restaurant, complete with an extra-long cocktail bar where it is a pleasure to spend time. In terms of the setting, you really feel as though you have landed straight in a New York jazz club during Prohibition (1920–1933). The interior is therefore very well done and exudes exactly the atmosphere it should. The bar also looks good, as do the front-of-house and bar staff. The cocktails are perfectly fine too: plenty of classics and original variations on them. If you are lucky, you will find bartender Daryl Liew On behind the bar, and everything will turn out just fine.

And there’s more..

Because there is always more. There are the ‘bling bling’ cocktail bars Hugh (in the Hilton) and Admiraliteit in Kralingen. Where the well-known cocktail bar Blender once stood, there is now Supermercado, a Latin American restaurant where Nomzamo Roseval runs the bar and where one can enjoy a glass of punch or a cocktail. Cafe LaBru has been going for several years now and feels like a warm blanket, a lovely quirky living room with live music if you are lucky and always a cool selection of spirits and cocktails. Level on Pannekoekstraat is invaluable to Rotterdam’s cocktail scene—which bartender did not grow up there? This one is due for a major overhaul within a considerable period of time, though. Ballroom on Witte de Withstraat boasts the city’s largest gin collection, Rotterdam’s equivalent of Amsterdam’s Razmataz. Gin and tonic is a religion here. In the mood for a delicious Paloma with your frikadel special? Hurry to haute-friture snack bar Tante Nel. Scharrels en Schuim on the Lijnbaan has neither its name nor its location going for it, but especially when bartender Dyon Seedorf is behind the bar, you will want to order a cocktail here. I would order the Smokey Negroni. And last but not least, Amehoela is on its way! Amehoela will be a restaurant, cocktail bar and club with a late-night licence in the former, extremely dubious DJ Café Bootleg on Mauritsweg. It still needs a major renovation, but the bar, run by four young entrepreneurs (known for, among others, Snappers and Calle Ocho in Amsterdam), hopes to open its doors in March 2017…

Header photo: Marie-Louise Taal behind the bar at Ayla © Jesaja Hizkia