Lucky for you if checking in here: Hotel The Craftsmen is the sort of ultra-cool boho bolt hole that becomes the highlight of a trip, then is later recommended to friends for years. It is not a destination for the claustrophobic. Nor should it be recommended for its facilities (there is no spa or gym). Those minor quibbles aside, it is a playful thing of ingenious beauty; an extravagant, family-run house of details, where each room is meticulously themed with the signature tools of the craftsmen of the 17th-century — the era when the canal house-turned-hotel came to life. Step inside and the creaking wooden stairs that twist from the check-in desk (yep, it’s an old workstation hung with hand tools) lead past original Delft wall tiles and transport you from today’s Amsterdam of overtourism back to the city’s Golden Age of merchants and artistic heritage. It’s a nostalgia trip worth taking.
Overall score 8/10
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Rooms and suites
Score 9/10
With no standard doubles, the concept is you choose your room as part of the experience. If you fancy the Bookbinder, expect a wall papered with typed manuscripts and a desk made of books. The Bicycle Builder showcases an original high wheel penny farthing and coat stand made from leather saddle and pedals. The Tanner smells of polished leather. The Brewer, in the old stone cellar where barrels were once kept, has vintage copper kettles. There are rooms that hat-tip to tailors, cartographers and clockmakers, and the sense is each is a museum piece, preserving an Amsterdam story that is fading too fast.
Should you need a hand, helpful staff have their favourites. For a double, there’s the Clockmaker, with artwork made from 250 vintage clocks. In the loft, there’s the Miller, with vaulted ceiling and exposed beams. The Boat Builder, with split-level, is one of two signature rooms.
The downside? There are 14 rooms and suites, but only 11 have views of the Singel canal. As for bathrooms, each has a differently tweaked aesthetic, but black tiling, brass piping and upcycled workbench sinks all feature. The deluxe and loft rooms have freestanding rolltop tubs.
Food and drink
Score 7/10
The hotel if full upcycled and period pieces, and that makes breakfast room and gathering area the Gallery a delight to hang out in. Take a leather and iron chair, sit at a table made from a bike wheel or woodwork bench, then enjoy a set breakfast or pastries from the downstairs oven — the smell of freshly-baked goodies wafts wonderfully up the stairs. Later, beer, wine and genever (a juniper-flavoured liquor) are served facing the canal. For anything more substantial, the hotel runs the Kitchen, a coffee and gourmet sandwich shop next door that’s very much in sync with the hotel’s style.
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What else is there?
Score n/a
Besides the vintage motorbike in the staircase lobby? Not much. This is a narrow canal house, not a sprawling hotel, and the focus is on the look, the history, the conversation with the staff. There is no concierge but there are personalised welcome letters and it’s very much a first name sort of place. Note, though the concept has wide appeal, the hotel is more popular with British and American travellers than anyone else.
Where is it?
Score 9/10
The artisans of the past would surely recognise the house that makes up the Craftsmen because of its enviable position overlooking the Singel canal. This is the Amsterdam of pretty postcards, of gabled houses, bridges and tilted merchant’s houses that are a breath of fresh air for anyone who hasn’t been to the city before. Conveniently, it’s a ten-minute walk from Dam Square and Amsterdam Central Station, yet just shy of the thronging streets the city has become notorious for.
Price B&B doubles from £207
Restaurant n/a
Family-friendly N
Accessible N
Mike MacEacheron was a guest of Hotel The Craftsmen (hotelthecraftsmen.com)
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