8 nights in a one bedroom suite at Hotel TwentySeven

Hotel TwentySeven Amsterdam is a 16 room “all suite” (3 of them are junior suites) boutique hotel subtly tucked away in a historical building on Dam Square across from the National Monument, the Royal Palace and the flagship De Bijenkorf department store.  It opened in December 2017.  [Note that it is unrelated to First Hotel TwentySeven in Denmark, which often popped up in search / maps results as an autocomplete suggestion!]

I stayed for 8 nights during the end of August 2019 in a one bedroom suite (room 501).  My stay was fantastic.  The in-room hard product is very impressive on virtually every dimension.  I found the service to be very good too.  It was consistent and very warm, but not overly formal or fawning.  Plus it felt very exclusive and private.  Given the historical building and small number of rooms, there’s no spa or gym, but there is a Michelin-starred restaurant (Restaurant Bougainville) and a bar with a very wide selection of high end spirits.  But more on all of those aspects later.

First of all, the in-room hard product at this hotel is top notch. Besides the attention to detail and quality of the finishings, there are numerous bells and whistles. It’s as if the hotel designers looked at a list of features of various high end hotel rooms and decided they wanted to lead or one-up in every category.  Here are some features of my room:

• A massive shower with dual overhead rain and hand shower heads, plus full chroma-therapy light controls, plus a full steam-room-like wet sauna (!) function.  Despite the historical building, the water temperature and pressure were great and rock stable and the shower seals off completely to hold in the heat / steam.  Appearance-wise, the floor has tile mosaics and the ceiling is arched and tiled.  The back walls have book-matched marble slabs that are probably 7” by 4” or so each.  The shower even has a full length linear drain outside of the shower door.
• Top of the line Geberit AquaClean Mera Comfort bidet toilets that do motion-activated auto-open, light the floor and do auto warm and fan when you sit down.
• A giant jacuzzi tub big enough to fit 4+ people with a window next to it.
• Automated window shades.  The bedroom got completely dark save for the red LED of the TV sound bar.  The bedroom and bathroom sliding doors close completely without any light leaking at the edges.  The window next to the bathtub has magnetic latched wooden shutters plus honeycomb / cellular shades mounted in side rails / channels for full blackout in the bedroom.
• Extensive automation: lighting controls and color control / dimming via a wall-mounted control in the living room and an iPad in the bedroom.
• A giant 65” curved Samsung 4K TVs on an articulating arm.  Wall-integrated AV & USB ports.
• An LCD peephole.  I’ve never seen this before; it shows the “one-upmanship” kind of design goals.
• A powder room.
• Everything is quiet inside the room.  No creaky floors, loud AC compressors, etc.
• The windows are quadruple pane (!) for noise control.  They have two sets of dual paned windows that are separated.  It really attenuates everything from Dam square well.  Normal noise is completely blocked and loud sports rallies in the square nearby are faint.  Also, the bedroom was off set from the living room in a way that made sure the bedroom was quiet.
• Spinel Pinocchio Plus espresso machine, well stocked glassware, etc.
• Copious closet space.  One closet even had an electrical outlet inside.  The nightstands and bathroom vanities also had plenty of functional storage too (lined drawers).

Another thing that is immediately obvious is the decor and design aesthetic.  It is wild looking but in an eye-popping, “feast for the senses” sort of way.  Despite going completely against the trend toward understated design in luxury hotels, it doesn’t feel stodgy or old fashioned like some highly ornamented rooms.  I wouldn’t want my house to look like this but it is a bit fun, and there is a consistent design aesthetic that is woven throughout the hotel.  The bathrooms are more subdued with white marble and gold textured wallpaper.

The attention to detail in the finishes is great as well.  Very solid parquet floors, very thick doors with concealed hinges, bedroom closet / cabinet doors upholstered inside as well as outside, color adjustable cove lighting, single slab marble on bathroom walls (not tiled), tile mosaics on the floors, dramatic downlighting on the sheer drapes when closed, high ceilings, etc.  The couch, chair and bed are extremely comfortable.  [Everything was in great shape save for a few parts of the delicate sheer drapes that showed some wear and tear at knee level (kids?).]

If I had to quibble there are only a few details I’d change in my room: 1) I’m not sure how I feel about a jacuzzi tub next to the bed, plus the one in my room is huge to fill up if you want to soak, 2) there’s no US-plug-compatible shaver outlet in the bathroom (though there are 4 standard Dutch power outlets above the vanity), and 3) the powder room sink faucet extends a tad too forward in the basin, making it a bit easy to splash water on the floor.  Other than that, I only had trivial issues: e.g. the usual challenges with “smart TVs” connecting to various models of phones and tablets and a floor pedal operated waste bin that would sometimes jam if you stepped on it at an angle.

Outside of the room, the tradeoff is that the hotel is somewhat constrained by the historical building and small number of rooms: there’s no spa or fitness center, the elevators are small and slow, and the lobby and common areas are limited.  The elevators might be a sore point if you are mobility limited: note that if you are on the 6th floor there is only one elevator that reaches floor 6 vs. two for rooms on floors 4 and 5.  On some days they had a conference on the 2nd and 1st floors, and that plus the restaurant and bar can contribute to the elevator demand.  [I was happy to take the stairs to/from 5 though as long as I wasn’t lugging anything.] But despite the very small size of the hotel they still do have 24 hour room service with a small menu, a 24 hour butler / concierge for each room, turndown, a Michelin starred restaurant and bar, etc.  

The only other aspect of the historical building that is a compromise is that, while the windows are quite well insulated from the outside noise, I could hear some noises from the rooms upstairs (e.g. moving chairs across the floor, stomping around), doors opening and closing, or bumps in the adjacent spaces (e.g. maid closet).  It was mostly vibrations and thumps.  There were also vibrations from trains, and on my last night, some bass-heavy dance music from fraternities doing something in the square.  The bass was barely perceptible in the bedroom but I’m very sensitive to stuff like that (vibrations).

Another thing to note is that all of the suites are different.  Some are larger, some have more windows, some have a tub in the bathroom while others (like mine) have it in the bedroom.  Many have powder rooms, but not all.  Some have windows in the bedroom, others do not.  Suite 406 uses a natural architectural feature of the building to great effect and has a gothic window in the shower!  Some rooms have a 1.8 meter wide bed (5 inches shy of US king), while others have 2.0 meters (and one has a playful round bed).  Rooms 402, 404, 406, 501, 502, 504, 505 are one bedroom suites.  401, 403 and 405 are junior suites.  And for named suites you have: Grand Terrace Suite (407), Grand Master Suite (503), Rooftop Stage Suite (601), Tower Dream Suite (602), Rooftop Loft Suite (603), and the Penthouse Suite (604).  The one bedroom suites vary in size a lot (550 - 800 square feet), so the only way to know exactly what room layout you are getting is to book a named suite.

The service was great while I was there, although I didn’t have any complex requests for the concierge.  From some of the minor questions I asked about Museum cards, I get the impression that they may be more limited on that front than a big hotel that has hundreds of guests asking the same tourist questions week after week for years.  But of my pre-visit questions were responded to relatively quickly, and our butler brought me a full bottle of vintage champagne for my birthday.  

The housekeeping was consistent with a good attention to detail (e.g. they refreshed the flower arrangements).  At the end of the week when they got busier, they were a bit slower getting to my room for afternoon cleaning, but it was never a major issue.  At turndown they would prepare the bed, place out slippers, place bedside water bottles, change the lighting ambience, draw the curtains, refresh wash cloths, etc.  I appreciated that they always had plenty of washcloths and hand towels in the bathroom, plenty of heated towel rack space, plus the bath towels were very large (but not overly heavy).  The powder room has little washcloths as single-use hand towels with a bin for used ones.  

They have two complete sets of toiletries in the bathroom: Collection Lalique and Lanvin Paris.  Both were pretty good IMO and not too perfume-y (I’m looking at you Peninsula, with your “Oscar de la Renta” toiletries).  I quite liked the Lanvin Orange Ambre bar soap, and the Lalique body wash.  They also provide a Dyson hair dryer.

The in-room wine fridge has 8 full size bottles of wine (3 sparking) plus a few 750ml bottles of still and sparkling water.  The latter are free and they refresh them.  There’s not much in the way of mini-bar snacks (a few bags of chips and a few chocolate bars) if that matters to you.

The location is neutral for me.  It’s right on Dam Square in the De Wallen area and is walkable to many things.  Given the vicinity to the red light district, there’s a lot of stuff open late (and early) that is extremely close.  Want fries at 2am?  Plenty of poor late night decisions await you!  There’s also Starbucks, Dirk and Albert Heijn all within <5 mins walking.  Plus the flagship De Bijenkorf department store is right across the square and, conveniently, they have a Global Blue VAT refund office inside.  

But if you want to visit the museums it’s a bit of a walk (25 mins), and not everyone may appreciate being right in the thick of things at Dam Square and so near the busy red light district.  The hotel is in a very touristy area and, when I visited in August, the particular streets around the hotel entrance are always bustling during the day.  It’s literally sandwiched between a “Ripley's Believe It or Not!” and a “Madame Tussaud’s” location and there’s always “stupid tourist” stuff in front of the royal palace area (think people dressed up as Darth Vader doing stuff for tips).   If the entrance was on a less busy side street it would have been a bit better. But the hotel itself is quiet inside, like a stealth VIP location.  It was 5 days into my 8 night stay before I first saw another guest.

I ordered room service breakfast and dinner a few times.  Everything I had was pretty good.  The omelette I had with cheese was especially good because they grated some flavorful aged cheese in very fine strands on the top and then caramelized it.  We ordered the dutch cheese rolls a few times. The room service menu is pretty limited, and it’s the same menu they serve in the afternoon at the bar.

The bar has a prestige collection of whisky and bourbon.  Hotel guests can use the VIP lounge room next to the bar if the bar is too crowded or you want a more private experience.

The hotel restaurant, Bougainville, has a Michelin star and gets good reviews.  We didn’t eat dinner there, but we asked to have dessert there on our last night.  The dessert I had there was simply fantastic.  It made me wish we had done more planning and scheduled time to eat a full meal there!

 
The dessert was called “Silence is Golden” and the presentation was quite fun.  They start by handing you a musical greeting card that lists the ingredients and plays the chorus from the song Gold by Spandau Ballet.  The dessert is all golden on a gold plate and when you break into the white chocolate sphere it has the yolk and white of a runny egg.  Most importantly, it tasted great.

Edit: removed pictures of dessert as per sticky forum guidance not to post meal pics in hotel reviews.

Overall, my stay at Hotel TwentySeven was extremely memorable!  The hard product is great, and the service was very good.  The set of features in the room is pretty incredible, and that coupled with eye catching decor and good service made Hotel TwentySeven a fantastic stay for us.