A free ferry behind Centraal Station carries you, in a few minutes, to the city's most rewarding post-industrial sprawl. Amsterdam-Noord turns old shipyards, factory halls and a bank vault into restaurants, breweries and a sculptural film museum. This is the crossing locals make and most visitors miss.
Behind Amsterdam Centraal, free passenger ferries cross the IJ every few minutes, and they are the best free ride in the city. For decades the northern bank was where the docks and factories were, cut off from the centre by the water; in the past fifteen years it has become the place where Amsterdam does its most ambitious reuse of old industry. You can spend a whole day here on foot and bicycle and never run out of converted halls.
The natural first stop, two minutes from the Buiksloterweg ferry, is the EYE Filmmuseum, a sculptural white building on the north bank with four cinemas, rotating exhibitions, a vast film archive and a waterfront bar facing the skyline. It anchors the Overhoeks side of the crossing, and the A'DAM Tower beside it houses the music-themed Sir Adam hotel for anyone who wants to stay on this side of the river.
Eastward along the quays at the Hamerkwartier is where the eating happens. Hotel de Goudfazant, not a hotel at all, helped define Noord dining back in 2006: 1,200 square metres of former factory hall by the IJ, white tablecloths among the machinery, a confident French-leaning kitchen and a car parked inside for good measure. A short walk away, Hangar occupies a corrugated-iron hangar on the quay with a fire-leaning modern-European kitchen, and Oedipus Brewing pours its inventive, irreverent beers in a big communal taproom that is the area's beer destination.
The crossing rewards the curious. Café Modern sits inside the 1920s former Twentsche Bank, the original vault still in the basement, serving a rotating five- to seven-course seasonal menu at strong value for the quality. Further out, Café de Ceuvel occupies a reclaimed shipyard turned clean-tech and creative experiment, with a ramshackle-chic terrace over the water; and at the NDSM yard, Pllek builds an eco-minded, mostly-vegetarian kitchen out of stacked shipping containers with a beach, skyline views and weekend DJs.
What ties Noord together is that the spectacle is incidental, not the product. These are real kitchens and real breweries that happen to live inside extraordinary industrial shells; the setting earns its keep because the cooking and the brewing do. The genuine pleasure is in the moving, ferry across, walk the quays, stop where the smell from the open fire pulls you in.
Take a bike if you can; distances between the halls are real. Check ferry routes and opening days before you go, since several Noord kitchens close early in the week. And give yourself the late afternoon: the light coming off the IJ as the city skyline turns gold is reason enough to be on this bank.
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