Is Houthavens the new Amsterdam Noord? (Restaurant reviews: Dok and Woods)
Please note that since writing this blog post, Dok has closed down
Please note that since writing this blog post, Woods has closed down
Hipsters. Just when you think you’ve located them (either so you can avoid them like a plague of dodgy beards or go join them for their next cold-brew coffee) they’ve moved on – taking over a recently abandoned stretch of industrial wasteland and turning it into the latest (I dread this word) “hotspot”.
When I first moved to Amsterdam back in 2000, I lived in a cockroach-infested tower block in Amsterdam Noord. Hipsters didn’t really exist back then, but students did, and we all headed as far south as possible to what was then the part of town to hang out in: de Pijp. A decade or so later – and with some notable neighbourhoods reaching hip status in the intervening years – Amsterdam Noord has achieved a remarkable turnaround. Led by the NDSM wharf but now stretching far beyond that, its network of container communities, converted industrial shipyards and urban-beach feel have propelled it to the far right of the Cool Wall. When once I winced at friends with kids considering a move to Noord, now I positively encourage them: “house prices will only go up!” speaks the middle-class capitalist on my shoulder.
So it was with some surprise, then, that on a recent bike ride home from my local Gamma (my apartment-move means I now actually own a loyalty card for a hardware store) I discovered the hipsters had been at it again. Cycling through what had until recently been just another industrial wasteland (known as the Houthavens),
I found a Brandt & Levie food truck selling gourmet hotdogs, a theatre showing that subtitled play about Anne Frank, half a dozen “co-working spaces” clad in solar panels and those weird succulent plants that are supposed to be good for the environment, and various places to eat and drink that seem to have sprung up faster than the time it’s taken me to get my head around the “pour-over coffee” trend. (I used to do this as a student 15 years ago because I couldn’t afford a coffee machine – since when did it become a thing?)
Dok’s urban beach in the Houthavens (loving the streamer of ties!)
One of those places is Dok, which you can’t really call a café or a restaurant – it’s more like a collection of containers, decked out to look like beach huts, in a giant adult-sized sand pit. I showed up to meet a fellow freelancer for lunch at 12.30 on a Wednesday, and was amazed at how quickly the place filled up – do all these people work in the Houthavens these days? Were they mostly students from the housing complex down the road? Freelancers or unemployed? I think I’m probably too old to tell the difference. Either way, if there are no tables left, you can grab a deckchair on the “beach” and soak up the sun on a summery day.
Open-faced hummus and roast vege broodje at Dok
The menu was nothing too creative, so we stuck with good ol’ broodjes. And to be fair, the sandwiches they did – while safe – they did well. We had a BLT with truffle mayo, and a vegetarian open-faced sandwich topped with hummus, roasted vegetables and walnuts. The service was friendly enough, if a little lacking in presence, but what’s new? Lunch came to only €9 each, which felt like good value given the mini beach vacation we took in the middle of the working day.
Amsterdammertje beer tap: clearly a necessity for any hipster bar
The following weekend, after another mammoth DIY session on another gloriously sunny day that really shouldn’t have been spent grouting tiles, the Honey Badger suggested lunch outside. My heart sank at the thought of trying to find a spot on a terrace in town, and then we remembered the Houthavens… Hopping on our bikes back in the direction of Gamma, we passed Theater Amsterdam and – right next to it – a spot called Woods that had a parasol-ed table with our name on it. I asked the waiter for a lunch menu; “I can’t guarantee lunch!” he replied. Then, seeing the look of perplexity on my face: “Aren’t you going to this afternoon’s performance?”
More open-faced sandwiches – this time the vitello tonnato from Woods
Having established that no, we weren’t here for pre-theater food, and yes, we’d really just like to eat some lunch, please, things got a little better. Service was quick (presumably because the theatre crowd all cleared out about 10 minutes after we arrived) and the food was decently prepared. We tried the vitello tonnato (another open-faced sandwich, this time with veal and tuna salad) and the “Hotdog Woods”. It came in an overly crispy bread roll with a knife sticking menacingly out from the sausage. It was more or less impossible to eat, but it tasted nice once you’d got past the inconvenience of battling your way through yet another hotdog designed more for Instagram than for eating. Lunch was a slightly pricier €12 each, which is perhaps because Woods is more of a dinner restaurant than a lunch café.
The eminently unmanageable “Hotdog Woods”
While the quality of food and service at Dok and Woods may not have been any better or more innovative than elsewhere in the city, the Houthavens still (just about) has this in its favour: not that many people know about it yet. Which means that if it’s a blue-sky day in Amsterdam and every terrace south of NDSM and north of de Pijp is jammed full of people, try heading northwest and you might just find your place in the sun. But you’d better be quick, ‘cause the hipsters are coming…
