Love, friendship and smoked salmon: Prince Ali hasn’t forgotten Grand Café Het Paleis

Ali, how long did you work at het Paleis?
‘I was there from the start, along with two colleagues. We were, and still are, real barmen. In those nineteen years, we saw a great many people come and go. I worked there right up until the last day. Man, did I make memories and friends for life. Now that het Paleis has been dismantled, it’s the end of an era for me.’

What made het Paleis so special?
‘If I had to name one thing? The acoustics. That was thanks to the arches, the high ceiling. Het Paleis only just fit in the lounge. Once, an opera singer came up to me and asked if he could test the acoustics for a moment. Of course I said yes. And when he began to sing? Beautiful, beautiful, so beautiful. Travellers stopped by and before I knew it, het Paleis was bursting at the seams. I’ll never forget that. That wasn’t the first time. We once had forty men from a famous French group on the terrace. They started to sing together with their deep voices. That created ambiance right away. So many videos were made of that.’

You already mentioned that you made friends for life. Do those include regular customers?
‘Absolutely.’ Ali grabs his phone and scrolls through WhatsApp, pointing out various people. ‘I regularly talk to many of them. Including Michael Patrick. He was sitting here one morning and asked for a beer. By the time he left, he had written me a letter filled with compliments. I later discovered that he has a podcast in America, and in it he named me as one of the top six bartenders in the world. Michael is now a good friend of mine. Another time, some guys from Munich arrived in the morning, sat down and only paid the bill at 20:00 in the evening. They came here especially to celebrate a birthday. They didn’t even go to Amsterdam, they stayed in Lounge 1.’

How would you describe your style as a barman?
‘I’m a showman. When people enter, I make contact with them right away to break the ice. Customers want happy faces… the customers are waiting, some of them tense before their flight. People order a drink to relax. And then they just want to hear positive things, because then they leave feeling positive. If someone comes in and they are in a bad mood, I want to change that. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work. There was this man with leukaemia. When he paid one last visit and said goodbye, I didn’t have much to say, I almost cried. You get to know the regulars. The crews, for example, who change shifts in the lounge. You get to know those people like the back of your hand. You know what they want to eat, what they want to drink, where they go home to.’

What will you take away from your time here?
‘Well, I brought home a salmon once. A Norwegian who often passed by had caught a salmon himself, smoked it and brought it back to give to me. He got quite far, but not through customs. He had to leave the salmon behind. He then tried again. He agreed with the pilot that he would deliver the smoked salmon to het Paleis. That was successful. It's very special that someone put so much effort into doing something for me.’

Sorry, let me reformulate the question. What lessons have you learned?
‘Oh, mainly that I love people. That was apparent early on already. I didn’t study sociology in Egypt for nothing. I was already studying people there. People are important to our happiness, you can’t be happy alone. I saw that with Kjeld and Agnieszka. When they entered, Kjeld immediately and nervously took a shot of Jägermeister. Then he went to the toilet, came back, took a box out of his pocket, got down on his knees, showed the ring and asked Agnieszka to marry him. People started cheering, which made Agnieszka very shy, but she said yes. I still have a lot of contact with them too.’

Love is in the palace! Great story. A new concept will soon be introduced on the site of het Paleis, ‘De Salon’ with a Grand Café and Deli. I read that they’re planning to make a huge bar around the kitchen, with clear views of the apron at one end. Perhaps not with the same acoustics, but there will be wider views. If you’re asked, will you go and work there too?. If the café gets a lot of customers and is accessible to everyone, I’d be happy to. Put me there and I’ll create the same atmosphere as in het Paleis. I’d love to see my old customers again. They sometimes unknowingly pass by the East bar, where I now work. It would be nice if they suddenly found me at the same place again, but in a new Café.