Passport to a melting pot – Rotterdam’s rich migrant heritage

LET’S start with a ‘Chinaman’ and his battered suitcase. The 20th century was just two decades old when Too Schie Mok landed in Rotterdam. He had worked his passage from Hong Kong as a stoker. Deep below decks the heat had been unbearable. It had to be done. Like so many of his fellow countrymen he put down roots in dockside Katendrecht, then the rough-edged red light district. Where the sailors went for R&R.

Pigeon ice cream in a beignet served on an impala skull, anyone?

Across the harbour he would have gazed on the grand headquarters of the Holland America Line – departure point for hundreds of thousands of emigrants travelling on to the States. A world in flux. Hasn’t it always been this way?

Today that iconic edifice trades on its heritage as the four-star Hotel New York and Katendrecht is a gentrified stretch of bars and restaurants. It is also home to that suitcase among two thousand others stacked in a gallery at the Fenix Museum of Migration, which only opened in May. 

Enter the Suitcase Labyrinth and you’ll find some bear yellow tags. Click on your audio guide and a bag’s back story will be relayed to you. Each arrival in Rotterdam represents a turning point in an individual’s life. As it happens, Too Schie Mok was my first encounter and what I heard felt so appropriate for our location.

Colourfully, he formed a Chinese acrobat troupe that became a big attraction, then married a local woman (who by law forfeited her Dutch citizenship) and became a middleman/wheeler dealer in the growing Chinese community of shipyard workers.

All long dispersed. Today’s unofficial Chinatown is along West-Kruiskade street near the centre, but is only one element in the racial diversity of a city with 176 nationalities represented. This is the backdrop to Fenix, a revelatory project.

A whole day there would not exhaust its riches. If time is short head for the The Family of Migrants exhibition, also on the ground floor of this converted warehouse. This brings together 200 photographs from around the world depicting the core story of migration. Some are world famous, some have never been displayed before, a few date back a century, others feature contemporary Syria and the cross-Channel small boats impasse. All are deeply moving. 

Upstairs is artist-driven collection All Directions. Not to be missed the quirky walk-through New York bus, made out of fabrics by Nashville-born Red Grooms. To get there and beyond you have to tackle museum centrepiece The Tornado, a 30m high double helix stainless steel walkway. Imagine a work of art that’s also a viewing platform. The  fantastic panorama of the city can be reached via two intertwining wooden staircases, offering alternative routes, mirroring in its 297 panels a migrant’s own random passage. 

From up there the yellow water taxis (a great way to get around) look like tiny bath toys. Look right and you’ll see Fenix’s matching warehouse, home to the Fenix Food Factory, which hosts a bakery and cheesemakers alongside street food options. The main reason to visit is Kaapse Kaap, flagship bar for the Kaapse Brouwers with 32 taps pouring their own and other cutting edge craft beers. 

Kaap is the old nickname for Katendrecht. 15 years ago the district around the Deliplein was definitely Tumbleweed Town until cabaret performer Harry Jan-Bus and his wife Rachèl van Olm saw the potential. Converting the once notorious Walhalla Ballroom into an intimate theatre was the start. 

Much else followed. In 2009 they launched Matroos en het Meisje, Rotterdam’s first French bistro. On the corner site of a former brothel. The name means ‘Sailor and his Girl’. Under the current stewardship it offers a pot luck seasonal menu of three to six courses and an award-winning wine list. The decor is Delft blue nautical and the staff are the jolliest of sailing companions. Highly, highly recommended. 

So too a very different dining establishment, Tres, deep in a basement on another waterfront, the Kop van Zuid-Entrepot. A self-taught chef with a Green Michelin star, Michael van der Kroft offers an 18-course beyond cutting edge tasting menu  based on luxury Dutch ingredients. Pigeon ice cream in a beignet served on an impala skull, anyone? Expensive but a special treat. More here.

Architecture born out of annihilation – celebrating the Amsterdam alternative

On May 14 1940 the Nazis carpeted Rotterdam with 97 tons of high explosives. Next day the Dutch government surrendered. Amsterdam escaped unscathed with all its Golden Age architectural treasures intact, but Rotterdam’s medieval heart was rubble. Hence massive, not always sympathetic, post-War reconstruction. Yet increasingly the blank canvas has given free rein to the modernist imagination. Two astonishing must-sees are close to each other. 

Architect Piet Blom built the Cube Houses in the 1970s. Essentially linking two narrow separate pieces of land earmarked for residential use. He created a bridge over a four lane road incorporating 40 dwellings each tilted at 55° on a hexagonal pillar. Oh, and he coloured them yellow. The experience of these private dwellings has been compared to living on a sailing boat. If you’d like to check that out, one is open to the public as the Kijk-Kubus Museum-house. 

The locals may do their twice-weekly shopping at the vast open air Binnenrotte open market, where the herring and stroopwafels (syrupy biscuits) are cheaper, but every visitor to the city makes a beeline for the Markthal.

Only a decade old, this inverted U-shaped hangar, with its 40m high fruit and veg mural ceiling, is a symbol of modern Rotterdam. Those folk lucky enough to live in the apartments built into its glamorous shell can probably afford the prices at its ‘street food’ stalls and cafes, which showcase global cuisines.

The Dutch are rightly proud of their cheeses. As always, it is best to seek out a specialist. In this case the cow statue outside on the pavement was the giveaway. At the De Kaashoeve (The Cheese Farm), Takuhi Cekem offers more than 200 cheeses plus a range of wines and deli staples. And remember it doesn’t have to be Gouda. Pair your pungent ‘Old Rotterdam’ with a glass of their fruity own label ‘Port of Rotterdam’.

Destination Delfshaven – with the world on a plate en route

De Kaashoeve isn’t hard to find. It’s centrally placed on the Oude Binnenweg next to the Eendrachtsplein Metro station. The underground system is a brilliant way to get around and lines A, B and C all lead from here to a very different Rotterdam. Just 15 minutes away is Delfshaven, a tiny enclave spared by the World War II. As the name suggests, it was once the outlet to the sea for Delft – home of the painter Vermeer and unmistakeable blue ceramics – and itself offers a photogenic taste of 17th century Holland. Plus, on its fringes, several snapshots of Rotterdam’s culinary diversity.

The Markthal, Cube Houses and De Kaashoeve were introduced to us on a guided foodie tour from Inside Rotterdam, one of their many walking and cycling expeditions. They also offer self-guided tours via an app. 

It’s the way of things. We also managed to fit in an exciting new app-led itinerary created by one of Rotterdam’s best-loved food writers, Jonneke de Zeeuw aka ‘Mooncake’. City of Food and Cultures is a very personal journey to 18 venues/districts loved by the author. In her words: “During this walk, you will learn that Rotterdam would never have become the city it is today without migrants.” 

This 5km ramble starts at the city walk kiosk, called the Tramhuis, close to the Eindrachtsplein and heads west along the afore-mentioned West-Kruiskade, taking in  along the way Cantonese, Surinamese, Ethiopian, Turkish and Cape Verdean establishments. Expect to spend just under two hours on it (more, if you stop off to taste).

Our time being short, we caught the Metro to Delfshaven to check out Ap Halen, a chic Indonesian cafe/boutique, its very different neighbour, the Eetshuisj van Delfshaven, one of the few remaining traditional eateries, serving homely food in a homely space, and … ‘El Aviva’, birthplace of the ‘Kapsilon’.

The literal meaning was originally ‘hairdressing salon’. That was trade of Cape Verdean Nataniël Gomes, who in 2003 asked the neighbouring shawarma cafe to combine his favourite ingredients in one dish. The combo of döner, fries, iceberg, a melted slice of Gouda, lots of garlic sauce and hot sambal has become the multi-cultural street food of Rotterdam. Earlier in the day we had wolfed a vegan version substituting smoked seitan as the 'meat' component. Plant-based eating is still in the ascendancy in the Netherlands.

Cheers with a beer to the Pilgrim fathers and a glorious haven

Picture the Delfshaven quayside on August 1, 1620. There has been a night of praying and fasting outside the Oude Kirk ahead of the departure of the Pilgrim-Fathers for the New World. Now the Speedwell is to sail this band of English Protestant separatists to Southampton, where they will board, the Mayflower, the vessel that will eventually land them in Massachusetts.

Easy to picture the scene today. The merchants’ townhouses, the River Maas’s placid swell, a glimpse of windmill sails. The dun brick church remains a sober bastion; next door, though is a place devoted to merriment. In a building dating back 700 years you’ll find Rotterdam’s oldest active brewery. OK, the Stadtsbrouwereij De Pelgrim only dates back to 1996 but signature beers such as the Mayflower Tripel and Speedwell American Pale Ale deserve classic status. The taproom offers live music too. Very un-Puritanical. 

Seek out around the corner the belligerent-looking statue of Piet Heyn, who was born here. This 17th century seafarer’s hero status rests on seizing the Spanish silver fleet off Cuba in 1628, but his reputation has been tainted by accusations of violence in colonial exploitation. Call it the flip-side of Too Schie Mok, Kapsilon and the diverse, global melting pot that Rotterdam is celebrating.

The Haven Hotel – luxury hideaway with heavenly views

Get off at at Leuvehaven –  this time lines D and E, three stops from the Central Station (another modern architecture stand-out) – and across the road is the Haven Hotel, one of coolest lodgings in Rotterdam, its exterior all grey and white abstract panels. 

The site is historic. Until 1850 the Leuvehaven was Rotterdam’s main port. The view from the modern-build hotel is part futuristic high rises and part vintage barges in the dock outside. And there’s even a water taxi stop.

We loved our fourth floor corner room with a  jacuzzi bath and that waterfront view. Alas, we were too busy to use the hotel's on-site spa and fitness facilities or the basement restaurant. 

We did find time, and I’d recommend it, to hang out on nearby Witte de Withstraat. Once known as the Fleet Street of Rotterdam, but when newspaper offices left it went downhill. Now it is really on the up with a string of hip bars and restaurants, serving, naturally a range of migrant cuisines.

This wasn’t the end of our Rotterdam trip. Look out for my report on Schiedam – Jenever Capital of the World.