I’m going to say it, to date, this is one of the coolest hotels I have stayed at – Sir Adam Hotel Amsterdam. I know i’m still a naive traveller and i’m easily impressed, but this place made me feel young and hip. Well, lets just say accentuated my inner hipster.
Amsterdam in general has some truly awesome boutique hotels to visit, from hotels in a windmill to a fashion hotel where the rooms are literally like your inside a dress. However I settled on Sir Adam for two main reasons, one it was across the river from the city and secondly the room had a vinyl record player.
Getting the across on the ferry literally takes three minutes on the doorstep of Central Station. The hotel is a short five minute walk. Feels longer when you have an artic cold wind and rain in your face. When you walk in you actually enter into the Butcher Social Club, an open plan bar, restaurant, equipped with pool tables, table football, live DJ and decor styled up trendy and cool. My eyes immediately went to the old school arcade machines, knowing i’m going to hit that and waste far too much time playing with a big ass grin. Up the stairs is the actual reception where you get checked in by an incredibly hip reception team in their denim outfits. After stating that I’ve been looking forward to stay here, I quickly get a complementary drink in my hands and telling me to follow him with a pleasant enthusiasm. We walk to the lifts but not before the dude showing me the record player on display with boxes upon boxes of records. “Choose and take any of them to your room man, no problem, just don’t take them home!”. We laughed and headed towards the lifts.
“So you were wanting cool and unique sir? Well how about this?”. The lift door opened and I smiled. Bigly.
Yes, a disco ball, flashing floor tiles, funky house music playing. In the lift! Awesome! Being escorted to my room through the black walled and floored corridors noticing little signs on the wall, made me think how I’ve always wanted to have hotel corridors like this and i’m pretty sure i’m going to round in circles during my stay here. We come to my room and I have to be honest it was a bit smaller than I anticipated. However once my eyes adjusted to everything in the room and the high ceiling I didn’t mind. Why? Because there was so many awesome little touches in the room, more than made up for it.
The most striking feature, the head board art! Not the best mind you, that honour goes to the hotel in Mersin, Turkey I fell in love with the concrete framework, like a raw building no plasterboard and decor attached right to it. Love it! Swinging around seeing the view of the river, then to my own personal record player, a cute little desk to do some work on, then a guitar on the wall (non removable), then the door into a very small bathroom, but its fine as the space is taken up by a more than ample monsoon shower and a large window to the river. I raised my eyebrow secretly giddy thinking would anyone see me showering. I was wildly excited by this. Anyway moving on, this is definitely a room to chill in and not have the feeling of claustrophobia like I usually get with hotel rooms. I stayed for hours listening to music, writing, reading, relaxing on the most comfiest of beds ever. This isn’t a hotel you just go and sleep in after a full day out, this is a place you actually spend time in.
Elsewhere in the hotel you have your gym which was pretty cool and well equipped for a hotel gym, and on the same floor of reception above the bar there were some secluded little cubicles facing the river view. I managed to get a good couple of hours of work done there, drinking my coffee with a comfortable level of background noise.
Food wise, well its a burger bar during the day and night. So nice and easy comfort food. Breakfast I didn’t have the buffet breakfast just opted for a simple Salmon, toast, juice, coffee from the bar. In the evening there were an eclectic mix of patrons from the young to the old. The bar staff were really friendly and cool. Amsterdam has always been a favourite place of mine, its so easy going, people are so chilled and relaxed and thus I was not surprised at all.
As I said heading into the city is quick in and easy within 10 minutes, but I loved spending time in the place, was entertaining and extremely cool. Would I visit again?Damn right, but there are so many other cool hotels in Amsterdam to check out so it may be some time before I come back. I will however be on the lookout for other Sir Hotels around the world. Totally dig it! Thank you #SirHotels!
Art of Man's Life 