The Best Hotels in Amsterdam
Amsterdam, with its spider’s web of canals, charming quarters, and quirky corners, is the place to eschew purpose-built hotels and go for buildings with a past: converted canalside mansions, old schools, former almshouses, and more. When it comes to our pick of the best hotels in Amsterdam, expect rooms of all shapes and sizes, interiors from the hip to the headily luxurious, and all manner of decor, from starkly minimalist to antique-store clutter and the summits of contemporary design. Their restaurants are often among the most adventurous in town, and the bars are way out front on the best bars in Amsterdam scene.
Which part of Amsterdam is best to stay?
For the quintessential Amsterdam experience, a hotel in the historic central Canal District, happening De Pijp, museum-filled Zuid or über-charming Jordaan is a must, but there are also great places to be found in quarters west and east of the center and across the water behind Amsterdam Centraal Station.
What are the best cheap hotels in Amsterdam?
One of our favorite affordable places to stay in Amsterdam is The Weavery, a cozy two-room B&B within walking distance of the Van Gogh Museum, Stedelijk Museum for modern art, and Rijksmuseum.
All listings featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. If you book something through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Paul Linse/Pillows Maurits at the ParkPillows Maurits at the Park
Maurits at the Park is a sophisticated boutique hotel next to the leafy Oosterpark, a lesser-known, yet just as enticing, Amsterdam neighborhood. Housed in a historic university building the Pillows’ team put a momentous effort into preserving every historical detail of, there are stained glass windows and colourful glazed bricks. Rooms are peppered across the old building and meander into the new as the architecture effortlessly transitions. The decor is inviting yet elegant, and the stone-colored tones and textures create a serene environment, while the floor-to-ceiling windows seamlessly connect the hotel and the park.
The hotel has two restaurants—the Spring Brasserie and Van Oost, their fine dining experience. The more casual Spring Brasserie offers fresh and delicious meals from breakfast to supper, while Van Oost, the brainchild of chef Floris van Straalen, celebrates worldly flavors via Dutch ingredients. And let us not forget Fitz’s bar, a plush, speakeasy-inspired bar perfect for enjoying a cocktail (or two!).
Roel Ruijs/The DylanhotelThe Dylan
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Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022This place is intimate, exclusive, and quietly detached from the city’s hurly-burly, yet in the heart of the historic hotel district, with club-like armchairs and a fireplace in the lounge, and a sleeker dark-marble bar. Rooms—some large with canal views, others cozier under attic beams or facing onto a courtyard—are interspersed throughout two august canalside buildings and individually decorated: lush red and copper, perhaps, or cooler white, gray, and peppermint green. In Vinkeles restaurant (well-spaced tables in a brick-lined 18th-century bakery), chef Dennis Kuipers serves Michelin-starred new Dutch cuisine, with affordable options from the same kitchen in the bar/brasserie alongside.
Sander Baks/Pulitzer AmsterdamhotelPulitzer Amsterdam
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Gold List 2020 Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022Rooms of all shapes and sizes range up and down the stairs and along the passageways of 25 houses stretching between two canals. Designer Jacu Strauss makes delightful use of period features yet gives the hotel a smart-contemporary feel. There’s plenty of cheekiness, too: an archway built of books with a bicycle on top; a Delft porcelain rooster or some other souvenir-shop weirdness placed in a lamp; a wall of 18 brass trumpets (well, one is purple—a delivery error that somehow works). Jansz. restaurant serves assertive dishes—strong on flavor, with subtle twists.
Courtesy Soho House AmsterdamhotelSoho House, Amsterdam
Housed in the Bungehuis building in the center of the city, this canalside Soho House has a rooftop pool with views overlooking the city. A Cecconi's and a Cowshed spa are landing this September. And in a nod to the cycling city, there will be a bicycle repair shop in the basement too.
Courtesy Conservatorium HotelhotelConservatorium
$$$ | Gold List 2018 Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022Perfectly positioned between Amsterdam’s Big Three museums and the city’s chicest shopping street, the Conservatorium (once a music conservatory) combines original fin-de-siècle splendour (decorative tiles and brickwork) and witty references to its past life (a chandelier made of violins) with sleek, clean-lined contemporary design by Italian interior architect Piero Lissoni. Many of the rooms are duplexes under original high ceilings, mostly tightly minimalistic but comfortable and warmed by colourful touches. A vast, bright atrium lounge includes an excellent brasserie, while the smart Taiko restaurant upstairs offers superb Japanese–influenced cuisine. The Akasha spa ranks among the best in town, in or out of a hotel.
Courtesy The Hoxton, AmsterdamhotelThe Hoxton Amsterdam
$ | Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2021A magisterial canalside façade masks a welcoming, cozily stylish hotel: soft sofas, scuffed leather armchairs, mounds of cushions, and colorful scatter rugs fill a lobby lounge bar that is constantly teeming with locals as well as visitors. Vintage furniture rubs against modern design; dotted about are decorative biscuit tins, old prints and bric-à-brac sufficient to fill a hundred grannies’ attics. Rooms come in all shapes and sizes, with the same trendy but homely air, and the big, jolly Lotti’s restaurant (with retractable glass roof) serves plates of flavorful food—juicy burgers, veal with polenta—all day.
Courtesy The Hotel ArenaHotel Arena
A former orphanage beside a park, this is now a haven of minimalism, enlivened by the odd piece of ’60s retro furniture and original 19th-century period design. It’s just east of the city center, but most sights are a mere 15 minutes away by tram. Rooms are comfortable and in the same white idiom, often with jet-black bathrooms; some are duplexes with high ceilings and large windows. A few look out over the park, as does a glass-walled cafe and restaurant with a large terrace that leans deliciously toward vegetarian.
Courtesy Sofitel Legend The Grand AmsterdamhotelSofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam
$$$ | Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022A 17th-century Admiralty building, a 1930s former city hall and an historic canal house or two combine to form a quietly elegant, reposeful retreat, albeit on the edge of the red-light district. The lounge, done up in warm colors with pools of comfy chairs, has a domestic drawing-room atmosphere. Bridges restaurant is up there with the best in town with an inspired menu of curious combinations that really work, and a verdant courtyard garden. Rooms are quietly luxurious, and there is a spa with a good-size pool.
Courtesy VolkshotelVolkshotel
The old offices of De Volkskrant newspaper, turned into an affordable hotel with a club, bar, and restaurant, buzz with life again, engaging young staff and even artists-in-residence in studios out the back. The mood is one of a communal workspace that flips over into fun, with surprises along the way, such as a rooftop outdoor hot tub overlooking the city. Rooms are cleverly designed to seem more spacious than they are (those on the northwest corner of the upper floors have fabulous views). A good-value option that offers more than its peers for the price.
Courtesy Hotel V NespleinHotel V Nesplein
A Dutch design makeover has given funky new life to a former office building in a narrow city-center lane. Inside, old variety posters reference the street’s theater-district heritage, and a mix of retro furniture (butterfly chairs, ’60s sofas) jostles among mustard-colored walls, parquet floors, and designer cheekiness, such as an open hearth suspended from its own chimney. Rooms vary in shape and design, but most have good-sized bathrooms. Other pluses are the central location and highly popular restaurant and bar, crowded with creative types and spilling out onto a large terrace in good weather.
hotelGrand Hotel Amrâth
$$The five-story, turreted Grand Hotel Amrâth occupies the former joint headquarters of a number of Dutch shipping companies and is the first example of the Amsterdam School architecture style, a zany Dutch take on Art Nouveau. It bristles with original features: stone-carved marine creatures, ornate ironmongery, a marble staircase topped by a high stained-glass ceiling. The rooms come with fabrics in carefully researched period designs and are spacious, with large bathrooms. There’s a good spa with a pool (equipped with a jet stream), an Amsterdam School-style cafe and a reasonably priced restaurant.
Courtesy The College HotelhotelThe College Hotel
The College is a 10-minute walk from the Concertgebouw and Big Three museums in one direction, and the cafes and restaurants of De Pijp in the other. Its name refers to both its 19th-century incarnation as a school and its current function as training hotel for hospitality-industry students. This means the occasional learner’s blip in service, but also that room rates are good value. Sometimes-gloomy school rooms and corridors are enlivened by large arrangements of flowers, contemporary Dutch art, and soothing colors. Rooms are comfortable, and the restaurant serves tasty standards by learner-chefs.
Courtesy Hotel Okura AmsterdamhotelHotel Okura Amsterdam
$$ | Readers' Choice Awards 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021In hip foodie quarter De Pijp, not far from the main museums, the 23-floor Okura towers over low-rise central Amsterdam. Many rooms, as well as the chic Twenty Third Bar and Ciel Bleu restaurant on the top floor, have formidable views. Inside, soft colors, beautiful woods, and filtered light create an air of tranquillity. Staff match it with effortless politeness, and rooms and bathrooms are eminently luxurious. The restaurants share three Michelin stars between them: Ciel Bleu (adventurous new Dutch cuisine) has two and Yamazato (classical Japanese kaiseki) has one, and Serre brasserie a Bib Gourmand. There’s also a top-class gym and spa with a 60-foot pool.
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Courtesy Seven One SevenhotelHotel Seven One Seven
$$Seven One Seven is a grand mansion in the heart of the Canal District, within easy walking distance of the main museums. Grand it may be, but inside it’s relaxed and domestic—rather like visiting the home of some very fortunate friends who happen to have a passion for antiques and curiosities. Expect honeymoon couples galore. There are nine sumptuously decorated suites named after artists, writers and composers, plus the more prosaically titled Room at the Top. There’s no bar or restaurant: you simply ring and order drinks or high tea in the library or drawing room from the charming staff.
Robert Mosterd/SWEETS HotelSweets Hotel
Bridge houses once used by operators to open and close drawbridges all over town (it’s now done electronically) have been converted with finesse and an exhilaratingly imaginative use of space into standalone hotel suites. Most of them are dinky, except for one or two that are relatively grand, and date from 1673 to 2009. Interiors in each pick up on the period—a touch of 18th-century opulence, perhaps, or Art Deco curves and angles – and mix in prime contemporary Dutch design. Views, by definition, are of the canals, and lodging in the suites provides an entrée into neighborhoods you might not otherwise reach.
Additional reporting by Rodney Bolt. This article was originally published on Condé Nast Traveller U.K.
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