Milena, high shine company from the Jordaan

There is a fierceness to Milena that shows up in the first thirty seconds, and a patience underneath it that takes most of an evening to appear. She is direct, glamorous and entirely without small talk, and then you find out that she spends her Sundays with wet clay on her hands, throwing pots slowly and ruining most of them without any visible frustration.

The contrast runs through everything. At 175 centimetres she is the tallest woman on the board after one, curvy, with long straight black hair and brown eyes and a high shine editorial way of dressing that does not blend into a room. Then she orders a coffee, dissects the roast, and turns out to be far more interested in your opinion than her own presentation would suggest.

Tennis is the outlet for the competitive half, played hard and often, and Angelika is the one she would rather face across a net. Ceramics is the other half, shared with Lea, who is equally bad at it and equally unbothered. Espresso culture is the thread that runs between the two, a proper morning ritual she does not skip even after a long night, and a subject she will happily be tedious about for ten minutes if you let her.

Her flat is in the Jordaan, minutes from the canal ring and a short drive out to the airport hotels. In English she is admirably blunt, which most travellers find restful after a day of being handled professionally. Book her for the evening you want to remember clearly rather than the one you want to sleep through. She dresses for the room you name, so name it properly when you write, and she will arrive looking like she was always going to be there.

There is no soft opening with Milena. She arrives exactly as advertised, high shine and direct, with no small talk at all, and then within twenty minutes she is asking about your work in a way that suggests she wants the answer rather than a turn to speak.

Be specific about the venue when you write, because she dresses for the exact room rather than a general idea of one. A restaurant with an opinion about itself suits her, somewhere the lighting has clearly been argued over. Coffee after dinner is a serious matter and she will take the roast apart without a trace of irony. The surprise arrives late, as it always does: she spends Sunday afternoons at a wheel, covered in clay, ruining most of what she makes and minding none of it. She is the booking for a night you will describe to somebody else afterwards.