Wyvers all-day food centre
The gal loved her brief introduction to the first Kimpton outside the USA, Kimpton De Witt Hotel Amsterdam and now was a perfect opportunity to see what it was like staying at this friendly old-and-new luxury hotel. It seems that brand-Kimpton has got through to American travellers, all ages but mostly child-free. Since their flights typically arrive early morning, they are delighted to find a multi-function lobby area, with lots of seating, and sockets and good WiFi, and always-there boiling water in a silver samovar, for make-your-own teas.
You are automatically brought breakfast granola and fruit..
From five every night the lobby becomes cocktail-hour, or rather 60 minutes of wine-tasting, liberally poured by hotel managers – see the image above. There are so many fascinating spaces in this 274-room hotel, a conversion of a Crowne Plaza. I like the deliberately industrial feel of Wyvers Bar.Restaurant, a free-standing facility to 90% of the guests who come in from Nieuwzijds but, for hotel guests, it is reached via a zigzag walkway past an inner courtyard with hanging hammock-seats. Come to breakfast and there is no buffet but you are immediately brought a blue and white Delft-look Villeroy & Boch plate holding glass cocottes of cut fruit, and honey with granola atop.
.. and a panier of baked goods
A server in dark grey, matching the ceiling, comes round with a wicker panier of croissants and petit pains au chocolat. The menu lists such What’s For Breakfast offerings as a cauliflower and tabbouleh salad but I must confess I preferred my simpler order for two eggs sunny side up produced eggs with the crinkly-crisp edges that I just adore. Plain wood tables have teatowel-look napkins and matching wood Peugeot mills (I have only just learned that, far from being a modern diversion of the car maker, Jean-Pierre Peugeot started by making coffee grinders in the late 18th century). I eschewed a pay-extra ginger-glow smoothie in favour of yet more excellent coffee and went back up to 622.
Eggs on local-design china
This, dear readers, is decidedly Best In House. 622, the Penthouse Suite, is duplex, with 14 spiral wood stairs taking me to a living space where everything, desk and chairs, feels so silk smooth I simply, well, stroke them. Sofas are covered in soft tweed, the bathroom has a most useful electric rail, and easy-pump Marie Stella-Maris toiletries. I love the bright blue floral cushions on the bed, which delightfully is not too soft. The terrace, with 270-degree views of Amsterdam’s rooftops, is big enough for cocktails for 20. Such heavy hardcover books as Amsterdam Canals, Surf Odyssey: The Culture of Wave Riding; High Tide Surf Odyssey; David Hicks’ A Private World of Interiors indicate that this is a modern-luxury hotel for Nihi-type globalists when in Amsterdam. And being ten minutes’ walk to the station is such a plus: I got there in ample time and, as contrast to yesterday’s gourmet lunch, I left town after snacking on a paper bowl of just-fried frites and a bitterballen croquette. NOW TOUR THE LOBBY, AND THEN THE PENTHOUSE SUITE
