This is a nice try. Another example of a hipster place with young, and I have to say, lovely staff. This time in Noord (on the other side of the IJ above Amsterdam).
The food was nice. Not terrific but nice. The menu of 40...euro's for 4 small portions if on the high side. 10 euro for an appetizer of tomato (if you don't eat meat) is on the steep side.
The wines they have all reflect the sign of the times. And they all resemble one another. There is no real variety. The wines are dry, leaning towards tart and sour and are all very light. If you're into that (and toute hip and happening Amsterdam unfortunately thinks that) this might be fine with you but after tasting 5 wines and not really finding any appealing, I decided to go with applejuice. Only to find out they didn't have that either.
Gin and tonic was my next choice. It came in a small water glass with a bit of gin, a lot of ice and a bottle of tonic that when poured into the glass, still contained more that 2/3's. When asking for a large glas, I got a beer glass which still couldn't hold everything to properly mix it so I ended up pouring half of the gin in the beerglass leaving half of it in the waterglass.
Ok. maybe it's not about the drinks but about the ambiance. Which was fine although inside the acoustics are so bad everyone ends up screaming at each other in order to be heard.
The plusses: The staff. All of them friendly, polite and patient and willing to help.
Average: The food
The downside: The drinks, the price and the hard seats that could have been taken from a run down cafetaria.
Would I return? Not likely. There are so many better options in the same price range (did I mention the wines by the glass are on average around 6,50 euro?) that I would happily bypass Café Modern in future.More