The Anantara Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky may be Amsterdam’s best-located hotel – but what’s an Asian resort brand doing in a heaving European city?
- After changing hands numerous times since opening in 1883, the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky Amsterdam was taken over by Asian resort brand Anantara in 2022
- While hardly the oasis of tranquillity one expects of the brand, its central location, Michelin-star food and good service all point to a positive future
Depending on your reason for visiting the Netherlands’ biggest city, the Kras, as some apparently call the Anantara Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky, is perhaps the best-located hotel in all of Amsterdam.
With the simple address of Dam 9, the grande dame stands on one side of Dam Square, which is about as central as you can get in this heaving metropolis.
Who was Krasnapolsky?
Adolph Wilhelm Krasnapolsky came from a family of Polish tailors and, in the 1860s, purchased his favourite coffee house, a run-down establishment that stood in a sun-deprived back alley.
He steadily expanded it by acquiring neighbouring buildings, some of which contained guest accommodation, until 1883, when he opened a fully fledged hotel.
Krasnapolsky died in 1912 but the hotel that bore his name kept expanding until, in 1952, it acquired the property that would give it its address on Dam Square.
