Margo, refinedOud-Zuid companionafter hours

Piano first. Give Margo an empty hotel lounge and a lid left open and she will sit down and play a standard, slowed right down, the kind of playing that makes a room lower its voice. Nothing flashy. Just control. Then she closes the lid and asks what you are drinking. It is a quietly theatrical way to begin a night.

Thirty-one. Slim. 166 cm. Long dark brown hair that falls straight, brown eyes that give very little away. Refined in every gesture. Mysterious in the sense that she answers questions with better questions, and you only notice later how much you told her. Calm enough to put a pause button on a frantic business trip. People relax around her without realising they have.

Afternoons belong to contemporary art. The Stedelijk, small galleries on side streets, openings with warm white wine and cold rooms. She likes work that divides a crowd and enjoys finding out which side you land on. Angelika runs the same gallery circuit, if you want another sharp eye. Karolina shares the piano, but that is a different evening. She has no interest in explaining a painting, only in hearing what it does to you.

Her third passion is gardening, the patient kind, bulbs planted in autumn for a spring she has to wait for. That tells you most of what you need to know about her pace. Nothing rushed. Nothing wasted. Evenings with her unfold the same way, gently and exactly on time.

Her style is vintage-inspired lounge elegance: low light, dark lace, a silhouette from a jazz-age bar with brass fittings. English is her language, spoken low and unhurried. She is based in Oud-Zuid, a short stroll from the Stedelijk and the Concertgebouw. Book her for a considered night, an exhibition, a long dinner, a nightcap near a piano, with longer bookings on request.

The Stedelijk, a little before closing. Margo stops in front of a canvas most visitors hurry past and asks what it does to you, then declines to say what it does to her. That is the opening move. Afterwards, a walk across Museumplein as the Rijksmuseum lights up, and dinner on a side street of Oud-Zuid where the waiter lowers his voice without being asked. If the Concertgebouw has a recital worth hearing, piano for choice, that becomes the centrepiece. After the encore, a hotel lounge with a grand piano and its lid left open. She may play one slow standard. She may not. The not knowing is the point. Near midnight she mentions the bulbs she planted last autumn, and how patiently she is waiting for them.