when you want, where you want.
Michelle Collins Rubs Elbows With Roger Federer at the Polo Bar
Illustration: Ryan Inzana
Comedian and host of her eponymous podcast Michelle Collins never stays still for long. Last year, she packed her bags and moved from the Upper West Side to Amsterdam. “The reason was simple: I wanted to live in an apartment with bathroom tile that wasn’t laid down during the Eisenhower administration,” she says. “And so I left the country.” This week, however, she’s back in New York for her Big Natural Tour as well as dinner among tennis legends at the Polo Bar.
Friday, August 30
I wake up in my refurbished and comparatively affordable Dutch apartment and beeline to my mini-Nespresso, which makes terrible coffee that I chug throughout the morning. For breakfast, I make two sunny-side up eggs in my Smeg frying pan — a horribly unappetizing product name — and place the eggs on seeded toast with sliced tomatoes. By now, you’ve probably seen the TikToks of people bragging about how European food has fewer preservatives than in America. This is true, and it’s why you’ll never see a stoner craving Dutch Taco Bell — a real thing that exists here and absolutely sucks. The ground beef is somehow … horsier? In that spirit, my eggs this morning are absolutely stunning: a beautiful sheen and a rich, jammy orange yolk. I hope the chicken who laid it is proud. I love New York and miss it often, but I have to say it is nice being able to buy a week’s worth of fresh groceries for around $50.
This summer has been a rainy, windy mess, but the sun has finally come out, which means that everyone is feral. The park is packed, painfully hot tall people whiz by on bikes in every direction. I take advantage of the weather and meet my friend Norman for brunch at a restaurant called Oeuf (“French for ‘egg’” — the worst person you know) in a neighborhood called De Pijp (“Dutch for ‘the Pipe’” — that person is me). I order eggs Florentine, realizing too late I’d just had eggs. But the place is called egg, so I’m ova-whelmed. (This is not who I am as a writer.) I also get my favorite beverage on the planet, Dutch Fanta. If you’ve never had it, immediately forget anything you think you know about orange soda. Dutch Fanta is tangy, incredibly fresh, extremely citrusy, with the lightest fizz — dare I say fizzanissimo? I would actually kill for it.
I swallow my third and fourth eggs of the day whole like a snake and go home.
I record my podcast and reward myself with a footlong Subway Veggie Delight. They forget to add pickles and olives, the very crux of the word delight, and I’m essentially left with a loaf of hard brown bread and some lettuce shreds for $12. I eat it while watching Below Deck: Mediterranean and take the loss.
Saturday, August 31
The gorgeous weather continues in Amsterdam, so I spend the morning slackjawed on my couch doing word puzzles and watching Love Is Blind UK with the shades closed. Around noon, I head out to meet my friend Ben for yet another outdoor brunch. Ben is a fabulous Englishman and was my first friend in town when I moved here.
We meet at a typical Dutch restaurant called Geent aan de Schinkel, typically Dutch in that the chairs are hard and wooden and the food is potentially not very good.
I’m on the fence about ordering a Reuben, and our lovely server tells me it’s greasy, so I opt instead for a veggie burger and ask if they can put sauerkraut and Russian dressing on it. I insist on being charged extra, and for the first time in the history of the Netherlands — a country that prides itself on being as stingy as possible — they tell me it’s on the HOUSE!
It took me moving here to realize the phrase “going Dutch” exists because people always split the checks on a date, and splitting a bill at dinner here will have people counting the ice cubes in your glass. So thank you to *squints* Geent aan de Schinkel for my bonus kraut and sauce! It’s delicious.
This evening, I am having drinks with a handsome Dutch man who works in the food industry, specifically in “fats.” (I swear on my life.) He suggests a classy cocktail bar called OCCO at the Dylan Hotel, where I order my signature cocktail —a bone-dry Grey Goose martini with a twist — and he follows suit. I learn so much about fats, you guys. Did you know that there is a fat shortage in France? And they have to get their fats from Germany? I am basically having drinks with the Butter King of Europe! Could he be The One? He generously picks up the full bill, but my leaving the country for five weeks is not ideal timing to cement myself as the future Meghan Markle of the EBI (European butter industry.) (He does not call it this.)
I then meet up with two of my staple locals, Jenna and Niels, for dinner at A Tavola, a cute Italian place where we all flirt with our hot waiter as he brings out crispy focaccia, tagliatelle with pancetta and lemon-butter sauce, and an array of roasted veggies beside a slab of mozzarella. The neighborhood cat keeps eyeballing our table, and I, a moron, keep plucking bits of food off my plate to lure it over with no success. What a little tramp! We finish the evening at a fantastic cocktail bar, Hiding in Plain Sight, where I have a Moscow mule with dill vodka that really appeals to my Hungarian lineage.
Sunday, September 1
I wake up in pretty good form despite my buttertinis the night before. At this point, you’re probably thinking: Does this b*tch ever NOT eat brunch? Well, good news, I do NOT go to brunch today! In fact, I do something 100 times worse and meet a friend at the Soho House Rooftop to get some vitamin D. My body has not seen the sun in two months, and I look like Nosferatu with a beautiful set.
We order a round of picantes, a “spicy” margarita of sorts. “Spicy” is in quotes because the Dutch version of Hot Ones would feature two giant blondes with wide-set eyes eating salt-and-pepper chicken while begging for mercy.
It is a madhouse of expats Tetris-ing their bodies into cramped crevices, so I eat a salmon poke bowl while sitting on the wet ground surrounded by the gnarled feet of influencers. Not every meal is novel worthy, so let’s move on.
Dinner is a moment. Americans in a foreign land will always find their way to each other, and such is the case with the team behind Stacks Diner, owned by New York chef Kevin Kearney. My friend Charlotte; Kevin’s wife, Laura; and I grab a booth and feast on essentially every single thing on the menu while giving our little life updates. We start with potato latkes covered in sour cream and trout roe, along with a cucumber and nectarine salad in vinaigrette. Is there anything more divine than a ripe nectarine? For the mains, slow-cooked pork chilaquiles, garlicky langoustines, and a crisp breaded eggplant in paprika sauce. And if you know me, which none of you do, you know I am a citrus/cherry dessert person all the way, so we finish the night with some Key-lime pie and a sour-cherry sundae. For a girl who hasn’t had a down-home meal in a while, it makes my little American heart sing moments before it begs for the paddles.
Monday, September 2
Monday, Labor Day, I barely leave the house. I record three episodes of my podcast, ready myself for an intense upcoming travel-and-performance schedule, and make a commitment to finish the food I have in the fridge.
For breakfast, my now cult-classic eggs-on-toast combo, this time with a little za’atar. I then snack on various bagged snacks all day like a real BBR (Big Backed Rat). For dinner, I heat up some fresh tortellini with a little pomodoro sauce. Finally, I stand in front of my fridge and throw away about $200 worth of food — mostly Activia. I am now ready to leave.
Tuesday, September 3
The day starts at Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport, which the locals lovingly refer to as “Shithole.” But if all you want is a warmed croissant and Dutch Fanta, which I do, you’re in luck.
You should know by now that I love eggs, but shockingly, my United Airlines breakfast eggs are not up to par. I know this is plane food and not Jean Georges, so it’s fine, but I’m starving, and frankly the pork sausages they come with look a little too much like King Charles’s fingies for my liking.
I am lucky enough to score an upgrade to business, which, for my six-foot-one frame, is a blessing, and throughout the flight, they keep a basket of snacks available for people in business to grab at their leisure. I eventually make my way to the basket to grab some baked chips — only once, and very gingerly, but I watch in amazement as a handful of people without a care in the world make not one, not two, but multiple trips to the communal chip basket, woodchipping their way through bag after bag. The guy sitting in front of the basket doesn’t even get up. He merely slides his hand into it like Thing from The Addams Family before tearing each bag open with his teeth. I long to be so free.
We land in New York, and I am now back in the city that halfway raised me, the city where I’ve been broken down and lifted back up again in a continuously painful cycle that I deeply miss. To celebrate, I order Starbucks to my hotel room — a black iced Americano and two kale-mushroom egg bites, which I swallow whole like Tylenol — and sit in a catatonic trance looking at Rockefeller Center while drooling. (I don’t sleep.)
Here I am, in a city of endless culinary adventures, options, cuisines … so I text my friend Aly to meet me at the Smith for dinner, a chain restaurant I can best describe as “What would happen if Mumford & Sons opened a Cheesecake Factory?” (Complimentary.) Say what you will about the Smith, but I dare you to find me a more delicious Steak Caesar salad in New York. I dream of it! Creamy, garlicky, the perfect amount of dressing covered in crispy Parm chips: perfection. I accompany my salad with a glass of rosé from the famous “Long Island” region of France, which they serve to me in a child’s juice glass.
Wednesday, September 4
I’m in press mode. I wake up early thanks to the jet lag, record my pod, ready myself, and head down to the WNYC studios for an interview with the fabulous Alison Stewart. Afterward, with zero shame, I beeline to Chipotle. Oh my sweet, sweet Chipotle. I love the excitement of the line, the absolute BEAN MANIA taking place. Whatever its employees are getting paid, it’s not enough. It’s like I’ve entered some sort of burrito boot camp, and it’s thrilling.
Now, I’m a simple girl, so I do your standard chicken bowl with rice, no beans, all the veggies, every sauce, and, of course, a little lettuce wig on top of the guac to prevent the lid from sticking. If that thing doesn’t feel like a full-on, weighed-down baby diaper when they hand it to me, clearly I didn’t flirt as much as I thought. Today’s bowl is moderately stuffed, but given that I will be wearing a form-fitting gown at my show the next night, that’s for the best.
I then head to midtown for an interview on my hilarious friend Taylor Strecker’s podcast, and afterward, myself, Taylor, and her wife (also named Taylor) go to one of my favorite dining experiences in New York: the Polo Bar, that hallowed ground where anyone with a reservation can cosplay as a horse-owning, Birkin-hoarding Greenwich Wasp for an evening. The bouncer swings the door open, and we are in. The wooden paneling, warm lighting, attentive staff: I am back. (Cue “Hello Michy.”)
Once inside, we sit at the upstairs bar to bleed our savings into dry martinis and some fried olives. Expensive, yes, but even on slow nights, the people watching is spectacular. Arguably my best celebrity sighting ever happened here a few years ago, when Nelly, the ultraglamorous manager, hinted that we had a great table and proceeded to sit us next to (brace yourselves): Joel Grey … Bernadette Peters … Kristen Chenoweth … (gasping) … CAROL BURNETT, and … JULIE ANDREWS. (Leo and Al Pacino were one room down, but, I’m sorry, nothing could top this.)
Tonight, after descending the oak staircase in my Chanel-knockoff pantsuit, we greet the staff with warm hugs and hellos and get seated at a table right by the entrance, giving us a 4K-quality view of the comings and goings. Then, it happens: a bona fide star sighting. A hush falls over the crowd as the Bob Attached to Anna Wintour waltzes in, and right behind her, looking as handsome as I’ve ever seen a man look in my life: Roger Federer. He stops at the table beside us, where British tennis royalty and 10/10 table neighbor Tim Henman just happens to be seated. Then he looks at us (absolutely not playing it cool), smiles, and says “hello” before heading to dinner with Anna, who does not take off her sunglasses the entire night. Right then, my chicken paillard arrives, hammered so thin it could be on the next cover of Vogue.
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