On Prins Bernhardplein sits an establishment where you do three things in one evening: dine, attend a concert and dance. Club Dauphine runs its signature Friday Night Live every (every other week) Friday, and the set-up is so pleasantly direct that you wonder why more places don't approach it this way. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., at 8 p.m. both dinner and the band start, and sometime later in the evening all the tables and chairs disappear to the side. What remains is a dance floor until 1:00 a.m. in the morning.
The Club Dauphine Band is the regular house band and plays every Friday Night Live. They accompany all of the evening's guest performances, and there are at least six each time. Jazz, pop and funk are the musical foundation; the atmosphere is inspired by a New York nightclub. That may sound grand, but in practice it just feels like a good night out, with food included. The band knows what they're doing, and you can hear it.
Dinner consists of four courses, with both a classic menu and a vegetarian option. You sit at the table, right in front of the stage, while the music is already playing. That's the idea: no waiting until after dinner before anything happens. The music is there from the beginning. Tables are available for groups of 2, 4, 6, 7 or 10, and the maximum group size is 10. Reservations are made through Santosh, the reservations contact. Please note that a 50% deposit is required. Tickets are transferable by name, but non-refundable.
The Club Dauphine Band plays, there are at least six artists in front of you, and at the end of the evening you just dance along.
Café Restaurant Dauphine, of which Club Dauphine is a part, is located on Prins Bernhardplein in East. The venue has a stage, a bar and enough room to dance decently once the tables are set aside. It's not a large venue, and that works in its favor: the atmosphere is intimate, the distance between audience and stage small. If you're looking for an evening where food and music happen not one after the other but at the same time, this is exactly what you're looking for. The Club Dauphine Band plays, there are at least six artists in front of you, and at the end of the evening you just dance along.