Food and drinks

Our kitchen is plain sailing

Our museum café 'Het Lage Licht' (Low Light in Dutch) is named after the lighthouse in our museum harbour is a genuine home port, where you can drop anchor for a while with a great cup of coffee and freshly baked apple pie, or for lunch or a drink with waterside terrace.

Opening hours

Tuesday till Sunday from 10.00 till 17.00 pm.

The café has a fresh, maritime image and a contemporary interior. There are objects from our collection in the new café as well. A central display case, for instance, contains a model ship of no less than 2.5 metres long of the Nieuw Amsterdam, a former flagship of the Holland America Line. You can admire model ships behind the bar as well, for example an English lightship, a boatman’s boat, a ship made of cloves, and the prototype of a freighter that was intended to be nuclear powered.

Local and sustainable

Our kitchen is plain sailing too. As many dishes as possible are made using locally sourced and sustainable products. Our cappuccino comes from the fair-trade brand Peeze and our beer is from the Rotterdam brewery Kaapse Brouwers and the cheese is Rotterdamsche Oude. Even the bread, which is served with the soups and salads or can be ordered as a sandwich, is unusual. It’s a natural sourdough bread from Zeeland, prepared using purified seawater from the Oosterschelde National Park. It is also baked fresh every day by talented people work, who cannot make their way in a normal working environment.

Het Lage Licht lighthouse

'Het Lage Licht' café is named after the lighthouse in the Maritime Museum Harbour. From the end of the nineteenth century, lighthouse Lage Licht stood in Hook of Holland – together with another called the Hoge Licht (‘high light’) – guiding ships safely into the port of Rotterdam. The Lage Licht was decommissioned in 1967 and got its current spot in the museum’s harbour in the nineties.

Award-winning ice cream, really good coffee and mouth-watering freshly baked waffles. That is Loeve, named after the old creek that used to flow here and in 1598 was the very beginning of the port of Rotterdam. You can now taste the prize-winning ice cream of Robin Alting from De IJssalon at this historic site. Our baristas prepare an honest and sustainable cup of coffee and warm waffles with surprising toppings. So enjoy the terrace at the waterfront with a view of the Maritime Museum Harbour. For more experience, inspiration and fun in the port city. From the Maritime Museum ♥

You can play and learn for hours at the children's exhibition Professor Plons. What could be better than a snack and a drink in between and a steaming cup of coffee for your supervisors? The most hospitable professor in Rotterdam is ready for you at his own coffee bar (or one of his helpers, if he is not there for a while).

The Maritime Museum offers a unique reception location in the heart of the harbor city with a view of the historic museum harbour. The maritime sector is deeply rooted in Dutch culture and forms the basis for our economic development in the past and today. You can feel the innovative and entrepreneurial power of this industry in the museum. We would like to tell you and your guests the fascinating story of the port of Rotterdam then, now and tomorrow and of the high-tech offshore sector in particular.

Loading and unloading ships, catching fish, scanning containers, hoisting sails, determining the destination together... And who is ready to tack? It's a party for children between 4 and 9 yearsto celebrate their children's party with Professor Splash! The children dive into the maritime world in the children's activity exhibition Professor Splash. The professor and his friends are about to set sail on their ships around the world, but there is still a lot to do before departure and the children can help with that.