On the Noordermarkt sits a place that refuses to be pigeonholed into one. Libertine is restaurant if you want to dine, bar if you fancy an aperitif, and café if you just want somewhere to sit. That sounds ambitious, but it works. The corner building on Prinsengracht gives the place something of an old French grand café, but without the stiffness that sometimes comes with that.
The menu is French-inspired and focused on shared eating. No plates that are just for you, but dishes that you slide across the table in pairs or fours. That fits the atmosphere: Libertine is not the place where you sit up tight and talk in whispers. You come there for lunch, for a late aperitif, for dinner that turns into a late-night snack. The drink menu runs with it: cocktails, wines, anything you need to stretch the evening.
The building itself does a lot of work. A corner location on the Noordermarkt, adjacent to the Prinsengracht, with the character of an old café that could have been there for decades. The Jordaan as a backdrop helps: this is a neighborhood that knows how to handle places like this. No tourist appeal, rather a place that the neighborhood itself goes to. Part restaurant, part bar, part café: a versatile formula that combines the elegance of an old world café with the lightness of a neighborhood eatery.
Part restaurant, part bar, part café: a versatile formula that combines the elegance of an old-world café with the lightness of a neighborhood eatery.
Libertine is open six days a week, from morning to midnight. It is closed on Tuesdays. On Sundays and Mondays, the kitchen closes earlier, at eight o'clock. The rest of the week you can stay there until well past midnight, which is no luxury in the Jordaan. Part restaurant, part bar, part café: a versatile formula that combines the elegance of an old world café with the lightness of a neighborhood eatery. That's exactly the point.