Chef Derk Jan Wooldrik on his pop-up restaurant & apéro bar Café Marseille @ Art Rotterdam

“Art Rotterdam will be a total experience,” says fair director Fons Hof about the first edition of the fair at Ahoy. Naturally, this includes a culinary experience. Café Marseille, a well-known name in Rotterdam, is bringing the charm of southern French cuisine to the event. We spoke with chef Derk Jan Wooldrik about the restaurant & apéro bar that will be opening its doors during Art Rotterdam.

“We are a cheeky, slightly sexy restaurant with a multicultural menu,” says Derk Jan Wooldrik, describing his restaurant. Wooldrik began his career as a ship's cook, sailing around the world for several years before working on land. He is now co-owner of the Rotterdam restaurant Café Marseille. Together with Kristian de Leeuw, he also owns the Double Trouble Hospitality Group, which includes Bar Bilbao, Bar Alaska and Eurobrouwers. Wooldrik and De Leeuw wanted to transform the atmosphere of their restaurant on Kruiskade into a pop-up version at the fair.

They enlisted set designer and decorator Ben Zuydwijk to create the design. Zuydwijk made his name in the film industry and has won two Golden Calf awards, the latest for Hardcore Never Dies (2023). “We worked with him in the past on a Basque pop-up restaurant at Station Bergweg, where he designed a Basque punk bar called Bar Bilbao. He has a unique perspective and is a fast thinker,” says Wooldrik.

A set designer creating a restaurant may not be the most obvious choice, but considering Wooldrik’s cookbook, it makes sense. Both think in terms of experience, atmosphere and storytelling. In the foreword, Wooldrik describes himself as a rudderless ship’s cook, an adventurer without a compass. “We are storytellers. We feel at home at life’s crossroads, where trade thrives, nationalities clash and collaborate, different languages are spoken and all kinds of scents and flavours come together in a feast for the soul.” He paints a picture of these places in vivid detail: “We are in the dark alleyways of Marseille, the smoky bars of Mumbai, the sweltering streets of Havana and the docks of Rotterdam.”

Wooldrik’s dishes are based partly on memories of the port cities where he once set foot and the food he ate there. Like in Palermo, Havana and Marseille, they are created with the everyday ingredients that are available: onions, tubers, turnips, whiting and bycatch. He prefers to use no more than three or four ingredients in each dish. At the heart of every dish are Wooldrik’s famous sauces, condiments and spice blends. At Art Rotterdam, Café Marseille will be serving bouillabaisse (fish soup), braised beef chuck, sardines and lobster, among other dishes.

Opening hours | Reservations not possible

Also available at the pop-up restaurant: Café Marseille: Harbor Cookbook, Het havenkookboek van een stuurloze scheepskok (The harbor cookbook of a rudderless ship’s cook). This is not a cookbook as you know it. Alongside Wooldrik’s best dishes, it is a chronicle of his cooking adventures as a ship’s cook, a journey through eight port cities where he continually lost—and found—himself in a maze of ingredients, scents and memories.

Written by Wouter van den Eijkel