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Growing up in the suburbs of Holland, I always dreamed of living somewhere else. I was born in Amsterdam but we left when I was eight years old. I went to London to attend university because it seemed bigger; At that time, Amsterdam was not as busy as other cities. But as the years went by, more people opened restaurants, cafes and delis. I returned to see my parents and experienced the city come to life. When my husband and I decided to return, it seemed like a good time to open our own place.
We moved in 2018 and converted an old canal house that belonged to my husband’s grandmother into a boutique guest house. We wanted to encourage people to visit Amsterdam for reasons other than those normally known. The first two rooms opened in 2021, and when the adjacent house became free, we added a shop, cafe and another guest room; The buildings are connected by a garden at the rear. It is a typical Dutch house into which I have infused my Lebanese heritage.
Most of our flowers come from flower loves mewhich is run by a guy who used to make flowers for the Royal Gardens in London – it has lots of stories. We are also just around the corner from what used to be Amsterdam’s old antique street. Sadly, many of these shops have closed and been replaced by more tourist-oriented things (that’s one of the reasons we wanted to keep our property), but there are still some really beautiful shops scattered around, such as Umbriaan art gallery in the museum district.
If you visit Amsterdam, be prepared to eat a lot of bread, cheese and pickled fish. When I come back after being away for a while, the first thing I want is a cheese sandwich. My favorite cheese shop is Keff – we are famous for gouda, but I like hard goat cheese. The best fishmonger is Tel, and luf It’s a great bakery – they make amazing bread and pastries and there are benches outside. It’s very local.
There is a word in Dutch, gezelligthat is untranslatable into English, but basically it is a feeling of comfort. As the winter here is quite harsh (the weather can be really terrible), there are many smaller places where people can gather. In every neighborhood you will find what we call a “brown” café, which is similar to an English pub. You already know that at 4 in the afternoon you can have a beer and a bitterbal, a fried Dutch snack, and it will be good. There’s a great one in the old city center, Engelbewaarder Caféwhich has jazz on Sundays.
Amsterdam has a crescent-shaped network of canals. In the middle is the Central Station and on the far left is the Jordaan. There is a great farmers market there on weekends (go for oysters in summer and mushroom toast in winter) and an amazing wine bar, two princessesin which my husband is involved. Also in that area is Toscanini, an Italian restaurant that has been around for almost 40 years. and I love it Gebroeders Hartering. It specializes in meat, which we don’t eat much at home, but I like it for date night.
If you live here, you ride a bike. If you are visiting, you must walk. It’s a very small town, it’s not a mission to go anywhere, but you need to dress in layers. Our style is quite similar to the Danish in some ways. I tried to add a bit of fun by offering Dutch brands like flower flowera line of high quality t-shirts and Extreme Kashmir in my store. The latter makes wearable sweaters in many different colors that make a simple outfit a little more special.
The nice thing about living here is that you can swim in the canal before and after work. (In winter I go to an art deco sauna called sauna decoration.) I fell in love with the city again because of the swimming and also because there is a lot of multiculturalism. Part of the reason I wanted to leave in the first place was because I was the only person with a mixed background in the area where I grew up. But there is actually a lot of that in Amsterdam; I just didn’t see it when I was younger. If you go to the market, you won’t just find cheese: you can get Indonesian food and amazing falafel. If I want Lebanese food, I go to the east side of town. People come for the marijuana and the red light district, but there’s a lot more to it than that.