The Dylan Amsterdam Luxury Hotel

Detailed Review

The Dylan is Amsterdam's most stylish and intimate hotel, offering its guests a sensational personal service. The Dylan ensures an environment of sheer escapism and luxury for the next millennium. It is located in an exceptional 17th century landmark on Keizersgracht one of the city's famous canals, creating a stylish residence for every purpose.

The design of the hotel building is an architectural makeover that respects the past and embraces the future. Each of the 41 rooms and suites is individually designed to provide the ideal blend of colour, texture and atmosphere. Daring and dramatic, offering style, elegance, efficiency and sensational service. The Dylan offers a haven, protecting the privacy of its guests.

Created by British Designer, Anouska Hempel, The Dylan Amsterdam is now established as totally unique, the model for the 'fashionable small hotel' around the world.Its' beautiful garden offers a haven of tranquillity, away from the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam's unique historic centre. A 15 minute stroll will take you to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House.

Press Quotes

"New owners and Dutch designers FG Stijl have revamped the reception rooms in an ultra-chic, contemporary style, beautifully balanced with warm, welcoming staff." Telegraph 07

Independent Reviews

Blakes Hotel
By Sarah Shuckburgh

A member of Small Luxury Hotels Of The World, Blakes combines exceptional service from fashionably attired staff, exotic furnishings and five-star comforts, just minutes from the heart of Amsterdam. It’s either beautifully designed, or completely over the top, depending on your point of view. From one of the grandest canals, one steps through a discreet sandstone portico into a elegant courtyard, with perfectly proportioned topiary. Early 17th century doors lead to a sleek reception area, where classical architecture blends successfully with 21st century minimalism. Anouska Hempel’s dramatic and astonishing decor juxtaposes contemporary glamour with Dutch colonial and domestic history. The 17th and 18th century buildings retain their original dark-beamed ceilings, brick floors and traditional gables, but every room also evokes the Dutch East Indies, with slatted mahogany screens, rattan and bamboo furniture, lacquered trunks, coconut matting, and cascades of silks and linens. Most rooms overlook the peaceful, leafy courtyard garden; canal-view rooms are surprisingly quiet, set back behind the entrance courtyard. Reception areas startle, with shiny black paintwork and bare white walls. Food arrives on slabs of granite, and even the courtyard garden has black walls. Only the merest hint of Delft blue intrudes, on some china pots. Colour control of flowers is equally strict - only white and green are permitted. In summer, Indonesian tropical hyacinths float in yard-high beakers, with elegantly tangled fibrous roots hanging in the clear water. In winter, Dutch bulbs sprout uniformly white blooms in vast urns. Bedrooms, however, are an extravaganza of colour - choose from gold, red, blue, green, or warm Indonesian browns, with matching corridors. Blakes is a triumph of theatrical panache and must be a nightmare for housekeeping staff. It’s impossible to sit anywhere without disturbing vertical stacks of colour-co-ordinated cushions. Curtains fall in perfect swags, beds are strewn with lengths of exotic cloth, and three-foot bundles of slender grasses brush against your face alarmingly as you pass. Instead of a basin, each room has a rectangular trough with a sloping base, like a doll’s swimming pool - a 12-inch wall of water gushes like a waterfall into the deep end.

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• The Dylan
  By Joanna Monkhouse

  In 1632 Jacob van Campen, the architect of the Royal Palace on the Dam, designed one of Amsterdam’s first stone theatres. Much of it was destroyed by a fire 140 years later, but some of the hallway remains, as does the subsequent church that was built on the site. Today, the building is home to The Dylan (previously Blakes Amsterdam), designed in 1999 by Anoushka Hempel, the British interior designer and creator of Blakes Hotel in London. The four townhouses have been treated to her signature minimalist style, with an Asian influence as a tribute to Holland’s former colonies in the Dutch East Indies.
  
  This ultra-stylish hotel is set back from the Keizersgracht, entered through an iron-gated C18th courtyard (the only building to have one in the city), then a large black door flanked by black-clad doormen. All the (young and beautiful) staff wear black. Even the hotel’s bicycles have black license plates. Service is friendly and attentive but attitude is all – guests are assessed on their cool factor.
  
  Incense wafts from the rooms, along with softly-playing music hidden away in a lacquered Chinese cabinet, along with the minibar, TV and DVD player. Colours are bold – black, red, green, navy, neutral or white. Fabrics are luxurious, cushions abound, and four-poster beds are to be found in many rooms. The original architectural details have been highlighted, and each room is totally unique, combining modern elegance with influences of the East. Almost half of the 41 rooms are suites, a few of which are duplex. Bathrooms are luxurious and spacious and as individually designed as the rooms.
  
  The Dylan’s restaurant is expensive but well regarded, serving a fusion of East and West, classic and contemporary – Thai/Japanese with a French/Italian twist. The décor is stark but chic – black lacquered beams, black tables and chairs, brick floors, a baker’s bread oven in the walls and views onto the large central courtyard. The Long Gallery and bar attract the beautiful and the glamorous, with large white sofas and orchids on low tables.
  
  The Dylan exudes cool, calm and chic, but this oasis in the centre of Amsterdam is as expensive as it is stylish.

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• "Central and refined, the sumptuous Dylan Amsterdam has one of the smartest addresses in town and a dramatic, ultra-luxe interior."

  A recent, gentle revamp added softer touches and practicality to Anouska Hempel's dramatic, stark original. A perfect example of the hotel as theatre.