Amsterdam steps out of the shadows
AMSTERDAM is undergoing an image change. Earlier this month the Dutch government announced plans to ban foreigners from using the city’s coffee shops (the coy name for bars in which you can legally smoke marijuana), turning such places into members’ clubs for permanent residents only. It’s a controversial move designed to make Amsterdam a less controversial place, and will have a serious negative effect on a tourist industry driven by the city’s liberal stance on drugs and prostitution.
While managers of seedy hostels and dodgy “Irish” pubs may be up in arms, though, many Amsterdamers are breathing a sigh of relief. The millions of backpackers, students and stag partiers who flock to the red light district each year are seen by most locals as little more than pests. Real Amsterdamers, the real Amsterdamers point out, don’t go anywhere near the coffee shops – they’re too busy making the most of a city whose vibrancy and culture are often ignored.
Away from the grubby licentiousness of the red light quarter, Amsterdam is still a place of quiet elegance, whose canal-side avenues, alleys and bridges reward exploration by foot or bike. Its tremendous artistic heritage, of course, is celebrated in world class museums.
But as a centre of contemporary sophistication, Amsterdam is a city on the up. Esoteric design shops and vintage stores, a classy social scene and blossoming food culture, mixed with the romance of its history and architecture, make it a wonderful place for a weekend escape. And, to that end, a number of chic boutique hotels have been opening – the latest, Canal House, from the hip British hotel company Curious Group.
Picking one’s way round the endless knot of Amsterdam’s canals and bridges and the streets beyond, you get the sense of a confident city, a place of creativity and style – and a destination in which an entirely classier breed of tourist, compared to those for which it’s famous, will feel ever more at home.
WHERE TO STAY
CANAL HOUSE HOTEL
The brand new Canal House hotel fuses the arcane charms of a historic canal-side townhouse – thin, high proportions, wonky walls, historic features like the eagle moulding that graces the ceiling above the bar – with contemporary design cool. A sultry colour palette of blacks and purples gives it a slightly gothic, boudoir-chic atmosphere which is tempered by the clean lines of the modernist furniture.
It’s a compact place – the tiny cocktail bar doubles up as the reception – but the rooms are lovely, with huge, comfy beds and sleek bathrooms. For a cool bargain, ask for the room installed in the house’s original kitchen, a huge ground-floor espanse with the original range still in place – it’s the size of a suite, with masses of atmosphere, but priced more cheaply to account for the odd creaky floorboard from the corridor above.
Rooms from €210 per room per night, based on two sharing. Opening offer: book three nights for the price of two if staying between Sunday-Thursday. www.canalhouse.nl [email protected]
THE DYLAN AMSTERDAM
A sumptuous, but effortlessly chic, hotel that’s arguably Amsterdam’s most fashionable place to stay. Its gorgeous courtyard and historic canal house façade are matched by interiors of cool, calm classiness. Its restaurant, Vinkeles, serves Michelin-starred French cuisine. From £330 for a double room on room only basis, via Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Call 0800 525 48000 or visit www.slh.com/dylan.
SOFITEL LEGEND THE GRAND
Now the European flagship of Sofitel’s most high-end hotel category, Sofitel Legend, the Grand occupies a building that dates back to 1578. Last year it underwent a major renovation – it’s a sleek, svelte place with a beautiful spa and one of Amsterdam’s most trendsetting restaurants, the Bridges. Rooms from £292 per night. www.sofitel.com
MINT HOTEL
Another British company, Mint Hotels – which opened one of the largest new hotels in the City earlier this year – has opened its first international property a few minutes walk from Amsterdam’s central station. A smart business hotel that’s also useful for weekend breaks. Opening room rates start at €199. www.minthotel.com
HOTEL PULITZER
Several ancient canal houses were knocked together to form the Hotel Pulitzer, which has its own art gallery, large restaurant and an atmospheric lounge bar. Upstairs, the rooms and corridors still follow the original, rickety layout of the original buildings. From £230 per double room per night. www.luxurycollection.com/pulitzer
WHAT TO DO
RESTAURANTS
A few years ago Amsterdam’s dining scene was no great shakes, but in the last half-decade things have come on apace. The new breed of luxury hotels includes some pretty fabulous restaurants – as well as the previously mentioned Bridges Restaurant in the Grand (www.bridgesrestaurant.nl) and the Dylan’s Michelin-starred Vinkeles dining room, Hotel Okura, a huge concrete slab of a business hotel outside the canal network, includes two world-class restaurants. A traditional Japanese menu is served in the zen ambience of Yamazato, which has one Michelin star, while top floor French restaurant Ciel Bleu has two, as well as panoramic views across the city. The hotel also has a dedicated training kitchen for one-day food courses with its top chefs, called Taste of Okura. Details for all three at the hotel’s website, www.okura.nl.
There are plenty of options away from the hotels too. De Kas (www.restaurantdekas.nl) is a fascinating project from chef Gert Jan Hageman, who took an old municipal greenhouse due for demolition and turned it into a restaurant and plant nursery, where he harvests ingredients to cook. Thanks to Holland’s old colonial associations, Indonesian food, served tapas-style in sharing dishes known as rijstafel, is extremely popular, and the place to sample it is Restaurant Blauw (www.restaurantblauw.nl), on the edge of the popular green space, Vondelpark.
SHOPPING – THE NINE STREETS
Occupying a small grid of streets at the heart of the canal network, the Nine Streets – De Negen Straatjes in Dutch – is packed with independent, esoteric shops. The vintage clothes boutiques, design shops, art galleries, jewellers and interiors specialists that crowd along these little lanes are colourful and endearingly off-beat – the pleasure is to wander from shop to shop with no agenda, seeing what you pick up.
Among the best are leatherwear and handbag designer Hester van Eeghen (www.hestervaneeghen.com), Terra (21 Reestraat) which specialises in pottery with a sideline in designer shoes, and the Amsterdam Watch Company (www.awco.nl), a simply gorgeous emporium of vintage and new watches.
CULTURE
The perfect high culture antidote to Amsterdam’s seamier offerings is a trip to Concertgebouw (www.concertgebouw.nl), the splendid concert hall that is regarded as being one of the world’s finest classical music venues thanks to its spectacular acoustics. A pleasingly intimate space, it hosts around 900 concerts a year from the finest musicians and orchestras on the planet.
For art lovers, the Riksmuseum (www.rijksmuseum.nl) is a temple to the great artists of the Dutch tradition – it has the world’s finest collection of Rembrandt paintings (including the Night Watch), as well as works by Vermeer, Frans Hals, Jan Steen and many others. A few minutes’ walk away, the modernist edifice of the Van Gogh Museum (www.vangoghmuseum.nl) contains a massive collection of Vincent Van Gogh’s works, as well as many by his contemporaries. For modern art, the Stedelijk Museum (www.stedelijk.nl) is one of Europe’s finest.
If you’re interested in jewellery, consider a trip to Gassan Diamonds (www.gassandiamonds.nl), the diamond company who’s workshop HQ is open to tours, and reflects the city’s historic position at the heart of the global diamond industry.
TRAVEL DETAILS
BY RAIL
Changing in Brussels, you can go from St Pancras to Amsterdam in just over four hours – a great service for those who want to do away with the hassle of airports and get some work done on the move. From £116. www.eurostar.com
BY AIR
British Airways flies from London City Airport from £129.95. www.ba.com