This happens because you have disabled the project menu on startup.
You can open the project menu from VNL by going to "Projects" -> "Open" in the menu bar. This option is only available from the Project View, so make sure to check the "Show on startup", otherwise you won't be able to switch back once you are in Classic View (I have reported a bug about this).
Should you forget to enable "Show on startup", you can reset all VNL settings by deleting $HOME/.vnl/main.ini