A fun date at Noah’s

It’s not all that easy to find: the Noah cocktail bar has an unpretentious appearance and is squeezed in between De Kooning café and the Marines Museum. Once your reviewer found the door – you have to push hard – it turns out that the extra walk round was well worth it. Six enthusiastic, loving eyes turn towards the door opening. After an enjoyable exchange of words we start looking for a ‘nice’ table.

That turns out to be a bit of a challenge. The main area, which is separated from the cocktail bar and the tiny hallway to the door, is full of nice tables in cosy corners. The whole gives you the feeling of a kind of wine cellar: dark, unfinished bricks and curved recesses in the walls. Unfortunately, the bar tender is nowhere in sight. The hostess makes up for this with her compliments. Candles inside the walls? Great idea.

Unfortunately, the menu is entirely in English. The ingredients in the cocktails – soft drinks and beer are alien to Noah – go far beyond some ordinary strawberries or bananas. What would you think of rhubarb? Fortunately, the extremely helpful waiter is there to help. He asks: what would you prefer? Sweet and fruity; he’ll take care of it.
And so he does. The (pricey) cocktails taste wonderful, although come to think of it: what can really go wrong with such a safe choice? A nice touch is that Noah has done away with the usual cocktail glasses and serves drinks in large goblets shaped like angry faces. The serviettes used as coasters seem strange. They quickly fray. That fits in nicely with Noah’s ‘raw’ image.

In the meantime the music’s volume creeps up. A DJ takes up position behind his set, but does not make any attempts at stirring things up. Indeed, there does not appear to be any need for this on this Friday evening: the thirty-year old patrons, primarily women, only have eyes for their table-companions. It makes establishing contact difficult: but Noah is a place to come to when you are already on the make.
In that case Noah is a good choice. In fact so good that your reviewer is ready to overlook the owner’s extremely proud tone. At one point he asks us if we dare risk a surprise cocktail. The cheerful man answers his own question: “Of course, we are the best cocktail bar in the Netherlands.”
He is probably not far off.