Amsterdam City Guide - Boutique Hotels and the Best Restaurants, Bars and Clubs in Amsterdam

Hg2's Amsterdam city guide explores boutique hotels and the best restaurants, as well as bars, clubs, shops, sights and spas.

This city of sin is classier, artier and eminently more sophisticated than you may realise. It has more museums per square metre than anywhere else on earth, plush boutique hotels in 16th century townhouses, achingly hip bars hidden in cobbled back alleys, invite-only gin joints for stylish cocktail-swillers, and dining that could sate them most gluttonous gourmand. For years, Amsterdam's brand of hedonism has been considered pretty low rent - hookers in windows, giddy students munching mushrooms, stags and hens tumbling about in a riotous collision of sweaty limbs and aching livers. While that's all still there to be enjoyed should you want it, the excitable mayhem of the RLD covers just a few streets in Amsterdam's spiral of pretty canals. Cycle a little further, and you'll find that Europe's capital of hedonism is more high-end that you might have expected.

AMSTERDAMNED...
Hg2 has teamed up with The Independent to write a fortnightly travel column; each column focuses on one of our cities, and tells readers of the prestigious paper how to have a bloody good night out in that particular city. Read our column on Amsterdam here.

HG2 MUST-STAY...
Though it's a limited compliment, Paris Hilton chose the Dylan over her own family's hotel when visiting the Netherlands in 2009. Built in the 17th century as one of the city's first theatres... Read the full review here.

HOES IN THE HOOD...
Trend alert! Anna Whitehouse delves deep into the Dutch capital's most notorious neighbourhood to discover the red light is fading fast... Read more here.

HG2 MUST-DRINK...
A bar without bar staff, Mini Bar has a different approach to service. Instead of all the queuing, you get access to your very own fridge full of alcohol. A fun novelty, if ever there was one... Read the full review here.

AMSTERDAM...