Eat

The area around metro station Blaak, called Oude haven (Old Harbour), is not only worth seeing but has also a lot of pubs and restaurants. The Rotterdam dining scene is developing very fast with new restaurants opening very often. While most of the attention focuses on new Michelin-star aspiring places, there is very much a trend towards high-quality mid-range restaurants offering French/Dutch cuisine.

• Angelo Betti, Schiekade 6a, ☎ +31 (10) 465 81 74. Mon-Sun: 4.00PM - 10.30PM. Italian kitchen and ice cream parlor. Whether you come for dinner or a takeaway pizza, you always have to wait. But everything here is definitely worth the wait! And what is so bad about having to wait a while when you can sit in the sun with a glass of great Italian wine in front of the restaurant? The good ingredients and the classy Italian waiters make the picture complete. In one word: fantastic!

• Lokanta Dunya, Proveniersstraat 40a, ☎ +31 (10) 243 06 69 (fax: +31 (10) 243 09 31). Mon-Sun: 12.00 AM - 11.00 PM; Sat-Sun: no lunch. The first floor is much like a Turkish market square. It is fully decorated and cozy, the fake balcony and window pane complete the market square. Through a small staircase, you reach the ‘living room’. Tip: Enjoy the freshly baked bread before you start your dinner. They have a wood stove that gives the food that extra authentic taste; some great wood-heated meals are stuffed zucchini and stuffed kofte. This place is comparable to the Wereld Eethuis Bazar in the Witte de Withstraat 16. However, if you are looking for more intimacy, good and honest food and superb service, this place is where you want to go!  

• Restaurant Café Lux, 's-Gravendijkwal 133, ☎ +31 (10) 476 22 06 (fax: +31 (10) 476 00 69). Mon-Sat: 6.00 PM - 11.00 PM; Sun: 5.30 PM - 11.00 PM. Nicely decorated Italian restaurant where you don’t just drop by for a simple pizza. As a matter of fact, they don’t even serve pizza. With the fine use of herbs, garlic and more interesting stuff that the Italian kitchen has to offer, it is almost impossible to not like this food. The personal is professional and for what you get the prices are actually not too bad. In summer you can eat outside (there is a small terrace at the back). A nice feature of this restaurant is that the kitchen is open until 11:00 PM, something that is not very common in Rotterdam. For sure you’re going to love this one!

• Restaurant Soit, 's-Gravendijkwal 136b, ☎ +31 (10) 436 31 14 (info@soit.nl). Sun-Thu: 5.30 PM - 9.30 PM; Fri-Sat: 5.30 PM - 10.30 PM. When you follow the Nieuwe Binnenweg towards the west side of Rotterdam and u take a left on the 's-Gravendijkwal you don't expect to find a nice cozy restaurant like Soit. This restaurant is well known for its eir staff. The smile of the hostess towards her customers is genuine; she knows that they're going to enjoy their dinner. It is not really cheap and can be compared with Eten. They have a nice mix of French, Dutch, and Asian food. Definitely a good place for romantic dinners. Don't forget to make a reservation!

• Stalles, Nieuwe Binnenweg 9, ☎ +31 (0)10 4361655. The atmosphere in the restaurant is relaxed and friendly. The menu furthermore features pizza, salads, sandwiches, tapas and more... The owner also owns Club Vibes, around the corner.  

• Restaurant Amarone, Meent 72 (near the City Hall (Stadhuis)), ☎ +31 (0)10 4148487. A culinary gem in the very heart of the city, this stylish restaurant needs to be booked well in advance. Very rewarding french cuisine. Valet parking.

• Rotown, ☎ +31 (0)10 4362669. This is 'the' place in town for creative people. Or it used to be because lots of people now go to the next-door café's Stalles and Parket. Rotown has a restaurant with decent food for a decent price. After eating you can go watch a band or drink your drink in the café.  

• Bierhandel De Pijp, Gaffelstraat 90 (Take Tram 4 to the Bloemkwekerstraat stop on the Nieuwe Binnenweg), ☎ +31 (0)10 4366896. daily 12.00-14.00 and 17.30-00. Closed on Sun and festive days and Sat afternoon. Prepare yourself for something special when visiting this famous eatery. The outside is absolutely rundown (so is the interior) and you must convince yourself to really push open the dark door. Once inside you will be welcomed by waiters in white and you will be allocated directly next to other visitors on benches. Good food is served (traditional Dutch and French fare), cooked in the same space that you're sitting. The place is frequented by Rotterdam businessmen and students and guests should fit in in terms of behavior and appearance. (Mick Jagger was famously denied access here for not being a gentleman.).

• Café Restaurant Sijf, Oude Binnenweg 115. In the weekend open till 2:00. Very nice old-looking bar. They also serve food for a reasonable price and most of the food is homemade. Try the grilled beef with Spanish pepper and garlic! Or have one of their great sandwiches or salads. Wanna have a nice Belgium beer that gets u all fuzzy? They have an awesome Belgium beer called “la Chouffe” (the midget) on draft. Very tasty! A good start for the evening. 

• Zinc Restaurant, Calandstraat 12a (Take Tram 7 to Westplein and walk 4 minutes from there), ☎ +31 (0) 10 43 66 579. Tue-Sun 18.00-00.00. Located in a very pleasant area called Scheepvaartkwartier this nice little (crammed) place offers good cuisine for a very good price. There is no á la carte dining, but a fixed menu with a limited choice per course (always 3 courses). The kitchen is French and Dutch oriented and focuses on traditional fresh seasonal ingredients. Reserve your table as it's often fully booked. 

• Werelds Restaurant, Witte de Withstraat 81, ☎ +31 (0)10 4121652. 11 AM-11 PM. Amazing fish and chips on a Monday and Tuesday, and Irish stew is great.

• Restaurant Parkheuvel, Heuvellaan 21 (Metro Dijkzigt + a short walk through the 'Park'), ☎ +31 (0)10 4360530. This sublime Michelin 2 star is the best place in town. Very nice views and service to match.
• El Aviva, Schiedanseweg 22. KAPSALON is a wonderful variation of Shoarma that was invented at this restaurant in Rotterdam. It has now become famous all over the Netherlands. A delicious, greasy meal!
• De Rotterdam (ss Rotterdam), 3e Katendrechtse hoofd 25, ☎ 0900-337 68 83. At the Rotterdam are two fine restaurants and a bar. When the weather is nice there is a great terrace with a view. Before the F&B you can book a tour. Or even better, spend the night at this fabulous cruise ship.  
• Open, Jacobusstraat 215, ☎ +31 (10) 213 62 57. A great place to have a soup or salad. The food looks great and tastes even better.  

Drink

Nightlife in Rotterdam is extremely varied, every subculture has its own area in the city. The Oude Haven (close to the Kubuswoningen) and the main market square Blaak are the hangout spot for business, economic and law students. The cafés and restaurants in the Oude Haven (Old Harbour) are located around a picturesque little harbor. Scenery of water, city lights, boats, and Het Witte Huis, the first skyscraper of Europe (1897). The atmosphere is really great and it is best to go when the sun sets, very romantic! Great place for a night out.

Close to the Oude Haven area, the streets around the Pannenkoekstraat have recently emerged as a new center for shopping and going out. Amidst small boutiques, selling clothes and interior design by young, upcoming designers, you can find cocktail bars such as Level or Soho, which both attract large crowds. Especially in the summer, this is a great place for a mojito.

The most lively bar area in town is Eendrachtsplein/Nieuwe Binnenweg. Alternative, easy going and full of friendly, open-minded people. The cafés you should be looking for are Stalles, Parket and Rotown. This is the place to be for the more creative orientated people, musicians, designers, and artschool students. Walk down de Nieuwe Binnenweg and arrive at Café Ari (Nieuwe Binnenweg/Mathenesserlaan) and Westerpaviljoen (grand café with the best terrace in the city). This is a good place to start the evening. Walk a little bit (3 minutes) down the Binnenweg again and go left at ‘s-Gravendijkwal (you'll see the flashy neon lights of sexclub OQ). Across the street, you'll find Jazz Cafe Dizzy. A great place for a quality beer and some live jazz music. You can also eat at almost all the places mentioned.

Now walk back the Binnenweg up eastbound. Cross Eendrachtsplein and go to the right towards the Westersingel. Walk 3 minutes and on your left, there is the Witte de Withstraat. Some nice café's like De Witte Aap, Mondriaan, Bar P, and De Schouw are located here, along with some good restaurants as well. This is also the artiest street of Rotterdam. Here you'll find Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, MAMA, a showroom for media and moving art and many more. Drinking in style!

The Hofplein area, just east from Central Station on both sides of the train tracks, recently emerged on the nightlife map after a gentrification project. It attracts a creative crowd, mostly art students. Main attraction is the formerly vacant office building Schieblok, with the Berlin-esque BAR, that hosts underground techno nights. They do good food, too. Behind the building is the Bavarian style Biergarten. To find the Schieblok, look for the massive wooden pedestrian bridge across the road that leads north from Hofplein. Around the corner is also the massive and somewhat tacky club Hollywood, that boasts everything from top 40 to hardstyle to a teenage crowd. North from the train tracks is the Hofbogen, underneath the former Hofplein train station. It houses a bunch of cafés and clubs, including BIRD, that plays jazz and funkie house till late. On the roof, there's an open-air cinema.

If you're into loud music, your best option would be to go to De Baroeg at the "Spinozaweg" in Rotterdam-Lombardijen. Loads of heavy metal acts play here each year. Should you not feel like making your way all the way into sub-urbia, you could also try your luck at the Rhythem on Oude Binnenweg. A popular hang out of alternative types.

The clubscene in Rotterdam is well-renowned. For example, it gave birth to the gabber-housescene in the early 1990's and was home to the Now&Wow, one of the world's trendiest clubs. The Now&Wow is now defunct, but in its last lcoation, an old grain silo near metro station Maashaven, there are still numerous dance parties. Just as with the barscene, there are clubs that cater to different groups of people. Moreover, Rotterdam nightlife is very dynamic: places come and go, move around, change ownership, etc. Currently, it is mostly centered around:

• Kruiskade: clubs as Off Corso (housed in an old cinema) and Thalia Lounge have good parties over the weekends and mostly attract 20-somethings.
• Stadhuisplein: number of bars and disco's that are more directed towards the working class.

• Delftsestraat: the Hollywood is a large disco that fills up quickly on weekends with an overall somewhat younger crowd. The Apres Ski Hut recreates the atmosphere of Tirol in the same colorless street.

Some listings that can be found around these places:

• Club Vie, near the old harbor area, is a more stylish, trendy club, which also offers nice views over the Maas river.

• Stalles, Nieuwe Binnenweg 11a. A small bar next to Parket. They serve a large variety of single malt whiskeys. It's pretty small but very cozy.  

• Will’ns en Wetens, Nieuwe Binnenweg 111-A. Forgot your name, can hardly walk and had so much beer that you can’t see the difference between your socks and underpants? No worries! When all bars are closed you can always go to the Will’ns en Wetens. You don’t want to be around there when you're sober, you don’t want to be around there when you hate drunk people and maybe even under the influence of other products, but you DO want to be around when you like burping, like whiskey (40 kinds), like weird conversations, and like Heineken! Open till the last person walks out.  

• Grand café Westerpaviljoen, Nieuwe Binnenweg 136. Open till 2:00 in the weekend. Rotterdammers like to read their newspaper here. For a solid breakfast (Dutch “wentelteefjes”), good lunch, or a fast meeting Westerpaviljoen is a perfect place. Hang out on their huge and fantastic terrace, drink a nice glass of Amstel or Hoegaarden White beer.  

• Le Vagabond, Nieuwe Binnenweg 99, ☎ +31 (0)10 4365293. The oldest, but the best bar of the Binnenweg. It attracts a mixed crowd of musicians, journalists, students, and travelers. The atmosphere is very laid back during the afternoon, but at night there are various activities being organized. Thursdays and Saturdays there are DJ's who organize HipHop and Britpop parties which are definitely worth a visit if you want to party it up. Every Sunday there is live music by a great variety of bands.  

• Café De Witte Aap, Witte de Withstraat 78 (Metro: Eendrachtsplein). Voted as best bar of the world by Lonely Planet readers this classic Rotterdam pub (The White Monkey) draws a very varied and often too large crowd for its premises. It's a cool place to have a few drinks before dinner or before exploring the rest of this very lively neighborhood.  

• Café De Unie, (Metro: Eendrachtsplein). This restaurant/café/art society is a Rotterdam institute. Housed in a magnificent building reminiscent of a Mondrian painting it also hosts all kinds of cultural venues and parties. A good place to have coffee too.  

• Pol Bar, Meent 46-48. In weekends open till 2:00. Nice looking bar with a modern solid patio. Crowd can be sort of posh sometimes, but don’t let that scare you too much. Right next to the market (Tuesday and Thursday), and they won some prices with their sandwiches.  

• Exit, Mauritsstraat 173 (From Metro Eendrachtsplein walk up the Oude Binnenweg. It's the second street on your left). A fairly recently opened bar. On Thursday through Saturday, this place offers live music. Most of the bands you'll find here are new yet-to-be-discovered-soon type of bands. You may be charged a small cover charge, but most of the time it is worth it. Check their website to know what's on.  

• O'Shea's Irish Pub, Lijnbaan. This Irish pub is in many ways quite typical. On Friday and Saturday nights the place is quite often overflowing with a decent mixture of the average going-out-partying type of young men and ladies. Tuesday nights they host a pub quiz with prizes to be won. On most other nights it's a bit quieter and you can meet some interesting characters in there. Thursday through Saturday this place hosts live music which can be anything between really good and sheer crap. If you're lucky there might be a jam session on Sunday nights which usually is enjoyable. Under the new management, it has lost its original atmosphere and it's more of a Dutch pub now.  

• Dynamo. Muzikantencentrum Dynamo is a place which rents out rehearsal rooms and a studio to musicians. It also has a bar that operates as late as the bar staff decides to make it. It is located a bit of the beaten track and is one of Rotterdam's secrets (over 95% of the locals don't even know about it!). Its location won't be disclosed here, but if you're lucky enough you might find someone who can take you there.  

• De Pui, Oostzeedijk Beneden 221 (Metro: Oostplein). Very nice bar in a corner building in the heart of Kralingen. Recognizable by the distinguished red awnings. There are students there, but it is not a student pub. There are musicians there, but it is not a musicians cafe. There are businessmen there, but that makes it no business cafe. It is the mixture of people and taste, that makes it so enjoyable.  

• Tiki's, Hartmansstraat 16/A (between Witte de Withstraat and Westblaak). Don't let the cheesy Hawaiian interior put you off. Frequented by an alternative arty crowd, with rockabilly and ska (and occasionally Ethiopian jazz) on the loudspeakers. Cocktails and small dinner menu.  

• LaBru, Hartmansstraat 18. Next to Tiki's, this cool bar-slash-art gallery is decorated with art and vintage furniture and attracts an older crowd. Menu includes a huge selection of remarkable beers, wine and spirits and the bartender here knows what he's doing.  

Coffeeshops

As everywhere in The Netherlands, the possession (of small quantities) and use of cannabis (hash and weed) is tolerated in Rotterdam. Since Amsterdam draws more coffee-shop tourism prices are lower in Rotterdam. Some renowned places:

• Coffeeshop "Pluto" (Nieuwe Binnenweg 139a) Actually a headshop. They also sell loads of paraphernalia like pipes, bongs, etc.

• Coffeeshop "Greenhouse" (Nieuwe Binnenweg) Ditto.

• Coffeeshop "The Reefer" (De Meent, City center)

• Coffeeshop "The Pool" (Westersingel, 5m from Central Station) A nice Coffeeshop located on the 1st floor where you can sit and relax by a table or bar. Or play some pool on the 2nd and 3rd floor.

• Coffeeshop "Nemo" (Nieuwe Binnenweg) Unlike many coffeeshops this place is bright, open and airy with large windows and comfortable seats; the walls are covered in a (Disney) Nimo-esque montage and the music is more relaxed than many coffeeshops. A good place for someone wanting something softer than many other coffeeshops.