The Best Places to Drink and Stay in South Centrum

A Forbes Four Star hotel where the Amstel River fills every window that faces south, De L'Europe has been hosting Amsterdam's moneyed class for what feels like forever. The old Rondeel building keeps its 19th-century bones while running thoroughly modern rooms, and a newer wing adds fourteen individually designed suites for guests who find symmetry a little boring. A spa with an indoor pool and a concierge who knows everyone round out the package.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

Six 17th-century canal mansions bolted together make for an unconventional hotel footprint, and the Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam leans into it rather than papering it over. Plaques mark which merchant families lived where, the dividing lines between houses are still visible, and the bones of the place feel genuinely domestic. A Forbes Five Star, a Guerlain Spa, an indoor pool, and a personal concierge bring things firmly into the present.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A boutique hotel on the Keizersgracht canal, The Dylan sits in a building that was once a theater, which partly explains why it carries itself with a certain quiet drama. The design leans toward the cozy rather than the showy, and the Dutch concept of gezellig, that untranslatable sense of warmth and ease, runs through the whole place, from the tucked-away courtyard to rooms with canal views.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key

The brown brick canal house gives nothing away from the street, but the interior is Dutch designer Marcel Wanders at full volume, all whimsy and plush detail with Alice in Wonderland references tucked into corners. This boutique hotel sits between the Jordaan and the Nine Streets, which means gallery-hopping and vintage shopping are essentially on the doorstep. Bluespoon handles both dining and cocktails when you're done.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The Rembrandt Suite sits where the Night Watch once hung before it moved across town, which sets the tone for a hotel that has been housing guests since Amsterdam was finding its footing. Rooms run small but bright after recent renovations, and the better ones look out over the Kloveniersburgwal canal. The Dutch breakfast spread and a marble staircase are the charming consolations for skipping the Jacuzzi. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

A former 17th-century courthouse on the Prinsengracht, fitted out by designer Piet Boon with a thousand original artworks and the kind of generously sized rooms Amsterdam doesn't usually deal in. The Rosewood holds two Michelin Keys. Common spaces, from the Grand Library to the courtyard lounge, feel welcoming rather than grand-hotel imposing, which takes more effort than it looks.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

The grand façade faces the Amstel River and has been doing so for what feels like forever, which sets the tone before you've even unpacked. This is a classic luxury hotel, Old World in the most unapologetic sense, all high ceilings and gilded interiors that make you feel like you've stumbled into a canal-house fever dream. Water taxis run from the door, and the Rijksmuseum is a comfortable walk away for when guilt sets in.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

You ring a doorbell on Reguliersdwarsstraat and hope someone answers, which is already a better start to a cocktail bar than most. Inside, Door 74 does the Prohibition speakeasy thing with dark wood and antique barware that stops just short of costume party. The menu leans into bold, complex flavors without abandoning approachable drinks, and the bartenders will steer you right if you let them.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A stately granite corner building on the Herengracht where the room rate quietly covers an open bar, bedside decanters of whiskey, cognac, and gin, and a nightly Dutch cheese spread. This canal-side hotel leans into dark wood paneling, art deco details, and stained glass, which is exactly the setting you want after you've done your Rijksmuseum miles. The kind of place where the minibar is more of a policy than a feature.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Twenty-three rooms in a 19th-century canal house on the Prinsengracht, dressed in rich fabrics and classic objects rather than the freaky minimalism Amsterdam hotels love. It reads more like a discreet private residence than a hotel, with plush beds, vast bathrooms stocked with Chopard, and the kind of personalized attention a 23-room operation can pull off. Breakfast in the garden when the weather cooperates. Note the steep, narrow staircase: no elevator.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Catholics once held clandestine services in this 18th-century canal-house chapel; now you sleep where the altar stood. It's a Michelin Selected boutique stay from the Private Mansions group, and "boutique" is doing heavy lifting here: you get a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchenette, and a claw-foot tub, full stop. Not a hotel in any conventional sense, but the kind of place that makes a normal hotel feel like a missed opportunity.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Two 18th-century canal townhouses just off the Museumplein, decorated with Barbara Broekman's custom wallpapers and enough contemporary color to stop the place from feeling like a period drama. It's a boutique hotel that splits the difference between old Amsterdam and new, which sounds like a compromise until you're actually staying here. Rain showers in every room, a ground-floor restaurant and honesty bar, and the Rijksmuseum a short walk away.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A renovated 18th-century townhouse near Leidseplein that operates as a chic boutique hotel without pretending the old bones aren't still there. Rooms are small but uncluttered, and the irregular floor plans mean some face a quiet street, others a private garden. The bar runs from breakfast through last call. Bicycles are available, which in Amsterdam is less an amenity than a survival strategy.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The old Sweelinck Conservatorium building, with its double-height ceilings and century-old bones, turns out to make a genuinely good luxury hotel, which was probably not the architects' original intention. Split-level loft suites occupy what were once classrooms, Piero Lissoni handled the interiors with characteristic restraint, and the Museumplein address puts you steps from the P.C. Hooftstraat if restraint isn't your thing.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A pool table beside the fireplace in Bar Claes sets the tone for this Michelin Selected hotel, an old-school Amsterdam institution refreshed with bold colors and curvaceous furniture that somehow avoids looking like a design hotel trying too hard. Rooms run cozy by necessity, as Amsterdam always has, but suites spread out properly and some catch canal views. The Rijksmuseum is a short walk away, which means the neighborhood does a lot of the heavy lifting.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Song lyrics are etched into the mirrors, a Crosley turntable sits in every room, and there's an electric guitar waiting in case inspiration strikes at 2am. This boutique hotel occupies eight floors of the A'DAM Tower across the water from Central Station, with views that remind you Amsterdam is almost entirely flat. The crowd skews creative and the building houses a nightclub downstairs, so quiet is not the brand promise.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Check-in happens on a leather sofa by a fireplace, which tells you most of what you need to know about this boutique hotel's approach. The building was once a diamond factory, and the enormous windows it left behind flood guest rooms with the kind of light its original tenants required. Persian rugs, quirky art, and contemporary Dutch furniture fill the common spaces. De Pijp, one of Amsterdam's most densely good neighborhoods, is right outside.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The kitchen table, not the bed, is the organizing piece of furniture in Zoku's lofts, which tells you everything about what kind of hotel this is. Sliding screens separate the sleeping loft from a fully stocked kitchen and a proper workspace, right down to scissors and spare pencils. The communal floors add a bar, open kitchen, and shared work areas for when the deadline doesn't care that you're in Amsterdam.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The building's architects were told to maximize the top floors for views and the bottom floors for street life, then essentially minimize everything between, which is how Amsterdam ended up with one of its more quietly dramatic waterfront shapes. Inside the twenty-five room hotel, raw concrete ceilings meet floor-to-ceiling windows and a white-on-white palette warmed by parquet and contemporary art. Junior suites add freestanding tubs for anyone who came to stare at the IJ.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best New International Cocktail Bar
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New International Cocktail Bar – Europe

Two cocktail bars for the price of one grand hotel: a wood-panelled, nautical-themed room tucked below the lobby, and a sleeker, louder sibling upstairs with a sound system that makes the chandeliers nervous. Both open onto terraces over the Amstel River, which is the kind of view that makes a second round feel responsible. The bartenders take the classics seriously, and the whole operation carries the unhurried ease of somewhere that has been doing this for a very long time.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. The Infatuation The 20 Best Bars In Amsterdam

Bar Mokum is a De Pijp cocktail bar you reach by climbing a steep staircase that tends to jam up with out-of-towners hunting for a vibe, so reserving a seat is the polite move. The drinks are twists on classics with Dutch slang for names, and the back room is dressed up as the Red Light District, which is the closest you'll get to Amsterdam's most photographed street without the photographing. Food stops at olives and nuts.

1. The Infatuation The 20 Best Bars In Amsterdam

Café Gollem is a small brown bar on a quiet lane off Spuistraat, devoted to Belgian beer in a city that mostly drinks Heineken out of habit. The menu runs long on ales, krieks, and geuzes, plus the rare Westvleteren, a bottle people reportedly drive across a border to buy by the crate. Expect dim light, cramped tables, and patrons who read the beer list like a chapter of scripture.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The 20 Best Bars In Amsterdam

The bar at No.18 is a bruine café, which means brown walls, brown ceiling, and centuries of cigarette smoke baked into the woodwork, all of it legally protected so nobody can touch it. Locals call it "standing Hoppe" because that's what you do. An old-school Amsterdam pub that has been around forever, it's the kind of place that makes a gin and tonic feel like a historical document.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The 20 Best Bars In Amsterdam

A cocktail bar in the basement plays vinyl while you're still deciding whether to do the short or long tasting menu upstairs, which sets the tone nicely. CUE holds a Michelin star, and the chef builds each course from three or four elements, leaning on the grill, fermentation, and a Nordic restraint that keeps things precise without feeling clinical. The sommelier leans toward natural wines and earns the pairing fee.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Lekker 500 2026 · Lekker 500
3. The Infatuation The 20 Best Bars In Amsterdam

This is a Japanese-themed cocktail bar on Reguliersdwarsstraat, Amsterdam's strip of loud, neighboring bars, with private karaoke rooms for the friend who needs to sing at least weekly. The drinks are sharper than the packed floor suggests, with shochu, absinthe, and shiso oil showing up in the cocktails, plus sake if your vocal cords need looking after. Expect to be shoulder to shoulder with strangers who'll be friends by round two.

1. The Infatuation The 20 Best Bars In Amsterdam
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Infatuation The 20 Best Bars In Amsterdam
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Jazz Café Alto is a small, dark jazz bar on a Leidseplein side street, a stretch otherwise given over to steakhouses and pubs for people who just left a coffee shop. There's live music every night, and the room fills up fast, so arrive early. They don't serve food, so eat first. The stools at the bar are the smart seat, since the drink line gets long once the band starts.

1. The Infatuation The 20 Best Bars In Amsterdam

This is a tea house on Rozengracht where the cocktails contain no alcohol and nobody seems bothered. You sit at low tables over tea-infused drinks, CBD lattes, and herby tonics, while upstairs the quieter rooms host traditional ceremonies, some guided by staff happy to get into tea mythology. The shelves of loose leaf and teaware exist for anyone ready to retire the grocery-store tea bag.

1. The Infatuation The 20 Best Bars In Amsterdam

Every surface in this cocktail bar reflects back the drink in your hand, which is either poetic or a little overwhelming depending on how many Bols liqueurs you correctly identified in the tasting hall you walked through to get here. The House of Bols runs a tour before letting you in, which means entry comes with a cocktail and a genever shot built into the price. The mirror room is the payoff, and the liqueur selection behind the bar is genuinely hard to argue with.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Tin beer signs and chalk boards cover the varnished plywood walls, and the bare wooden floor suggests nobody ever worried much about the mess. This is a traditional Belgian beer bar in Amsterdam, with a list of well over a hundred bottles and a handful of draught taps weighted heavily toward Belgian and Dutch brews. Late on weekends, the name, which means "crazy," stops being ironic and starts being a warning.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A cocktail bar named for a South American and New Zealand fruit that shows up in some of the drinks, Feijoa sits at the busy corner of Vijzelstraat and Reguliersdwarsstraat. The short menu skews sweet, fruity, and creamy, but the bartenders are happiest going off-script, especially on classics. The tell: neighboring bar staff fill the stools before and after their own shifts, which is as reliable a signal as any that the team here knows how to pour.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The building used to be something official and grand, and the hotel inside it leans into that with a cocktail bar done in stark black and glass that shouldn't work but does. A row of plush booth seats faces a communal high table that looks like a fish tank scaled for people, drawing an even split of fashion industry types and people on expenses. Tunes Bar is the kind of place where the architecture does half the work, and nobody minds.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Copper chain curtains hang between the bar and the canal that runs directly beneath it, which tells you a lot about Hotel De l'Europe's priorities. Freddie's is a classic hotel bar: panelled walls, leather banquettes, and a warm pink-orange glow overhead. It's named for Alfred Heineken, who apparently used to hold court here among friends. Anyone can walk in, and people do, but the room very much dresses up.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

A brown café so undesigned it loops back around to charming, De Pilsner sits on a narrow Begijnensteeg alley and operates on a simple principle: beer on draught, beer in bottles, or genever, and ideally all three in sequence. Regulars call it De Engelse Reet, which translates politely as The English Backside, a nickname the place wears with no apparent shame. There's no DJ, no aesthetic, no concept. Just the low hum of people actually talking to each other.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A one-room tasting house tucked near Central Station, De Ooievaar pours genevers and liqueurs from the distillery that shares its name and has been around forever. The shelves do the decorating, the room fits maybe a dozen people comfortably, and the whole point is standing at the bar with a small glass of something Dutch and slightly medicinal-tasting. It sits on a corner, conveniently on the walking route that politely gets described as "toward the Red Light district."

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide