Dam Square / Old Centre

Anantara Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky Amsterdam

★★★★★

The Krasnapolsky is the hotel to choose if you want to be at the absolute centre of Amsterdam in a building with real history, and it is our top pick in the city for first-time visitors who want comfort and space more than canal-house quirks. It stands on Dam Square, directly opposite the Royal Palace and the National Monument, where the hotel has welcomed guests for more than one hundred and fifty years. Its story begins with a Polish-born tailor, Adolph Wilhelm Krasnapolsky, who took over a modest café here in the 1860s and grew it, building by building, into one of the most celebrated hotels in Europe, known for its lavish public rooms. That heritage still shapes the stay. Breakfast is served in the Wintergarden, a soaring hall beneath a nineteenth-century glass roof that is one of the most beautiful rooms in the city; the Grand Café Krasnapolsky overlooks the square and is known for its afternoon tea and patisserie; Bar The Tailor nods to the founder with bespoke cocktails; and The White Room, a jewel-box dining room with a Michelin star, serves refined modern cooking built on local produce. The hotel is now part of Anantara, the luxury brand of Minor Hotels, and has an Anantara Spa for treatments and a well-equipped gym with a climbing wall. With 402 rooms and suites, ranging from about twenty-six to fifty square metres for rooms and up to a hundred and fifty for suites, it is far larger than most hotels in the old centre, which means lifts, generous corridors and room layouts for couples, families and groups, including triples and quadruples.

Who it suits: first-time visitors who want everything on foot, families who need a proper family room rather than a cramped canal-house double, and couples celebrating something special who like the idea of a historic grand hotel. Walking distances are short in every direction: the Royal Palace and the Nieuwe Kerk are across the square, the Nine Streets and the Canal Ring are ten minutes west, the Begijnhof is a short stroll south, Centraal station is about ten minutes north and trams to Museumplein leave from the square. It is also a good base for a short city break, because you waste no time getting around.

Living in it: the size of the hotel is both its strength and its compromise. Public spaces are grand, service runs smoothly and the facilities are those of a full-scale luxury hotel, but it lacks the intimacy of the boutique canal-house hotels, and Dam Square is busy, sometimes noisy, from morning to late evening with crowds, street performers and events. Ask for a room facing the inner courtyards if you are a light sleeper, or a Dam-facing room if you want the view of the palace. Breakfast in the Wintergarden is a highlight in itself, and dinner at The White Room should be booked well ahead. The hotel is pet-friendly, with cats and dogs welcome.

Value: rates are at the luxury end of the market and rise sharply in spring, summer and around holidays and big events. Amsterdam's tourist tax is charged on top as a percentage of the room rate: 12.5 percent in 2026, with a rise to 16 percent from 2027 proposed in the city budget and due to be voted on by the council on 11 and 12 November 2026. The value case is location, space and history: in a city of small rooms, the Krasnapolsky gives you a spacious, well-run base on the most central square in the country.