The Seafood Bar on Damrak: Valhalla for fish lovers

Not every seafood restaurant can say it sits in one of the city's most beautiful buildings. The Seafood Bar on the Damrak can. The building is the historic Beurs van Berlage, an architectural showpiece right in the center. Inside, you eat seafood under high ceilings and with a history you can almost touch. That's not nothing for a restaurant that started in 2012 as the idea of a fishmonger from Helmond.

That fishmonger is Fons de Visscher, founder and the face behind the chain. His children Fleur de Visscher and Pepijn de Visscher now run the business as second-generation owners. The menu exudes what Fons always did: quality from the sea, as pure as possible. Think fresh oysters, lobster and North Sea crab. But Volendam smoked eel is also on the menu, one of the more quirky choices you don't find everywhere. And then there are the Texel razor clams, aka razor clams, for those who want to go beyond the standard shellfish.

The concept revolves around sustainable sourcing. Line-caught fish, cooperation with innovative seafood companies, carefully selected products. Seafood platters on a bed of crushed ice are the restaurant's calling card: a hefty pile of things from the sea, neatly presented, straight from the ice to your table. The atmosphere is lively without being noisy. Tourists sit here, but also just people who know where to eat well.

The Oyster Happy Hour is one of the better deals in town: fresh oysters for $1.50 each, every day.

The Seafood Bar now has five establishments: four in Amsterdam, namely Damrak, Spa, Van Baerlestraat and Ferdinand Bolstraat. And in the basement of the Beurs van Berlage they also run dinner and dance restaurant House of Noa.

Reservations can be made for sixty percent of the tables; the rest are for walk-ins. The Oyster Happy Hour is daily for $1.50 per oyster: you rarely get a fresh oyster that cheap downtown.