Zoku
What We Love
- A chic home away from home in Amsterdam, with breakfast and a late check-out includedExploring the hip boutiques and cobbled lanes of picturesque Amsterdam
- The hotel's friendly staff, who are on hand with plenty of suggestions and insider tips
- Zoku's frequent guest events, like yoga classes, cheese tastings and talks from locals
What To Know
- Some rooms have full kitchens (there's also an on-site restaurant, too)
- This funky boutique sleep feels more like a home than a hotel
- There's a treatment room for yoga and meditation, as well as a stylish gym that offers workout classes with a guest discount
Overview
The Lowdown
With soaring ceilings, spacious interiors and no shortage of charm, Zoku is shaking up Amsterdam’s hotel scene with its lofty living and home-away-from-home experience. Sleek white walls provide the blank canvas, while cacti, unique art pieces and quirky touches, like hanging gymnastic rings, provide plenty of character. In fact, the rooms here are so inviting that you may even choose to spend a night in – and if you do, you’ll be able to whip up a storm in your fully equipped kitchen (don’t worry – there’s an on-site restaurant, too).
Amsterdam is a famously easy city to explore, thanks to its metro system, leisurely canals and bicycle-friendly streets. The museums and popular sights are just a short walk away, and the local area is bursting with cafés and boutiques. If you’re stuck for ideas – or just want a local’s view on the best places to eat, walk or shop – just ask one of the hotel’s Sidekicks. These guys and girls, dressed in white shirts, act as an informal concierge and can suggest the perfect destination or activity for anyone’s taste.
Rooms
Ingenious use of space means that each Zoku loft XL has plenty of room for a seating area, a dining table, a small kitchen and a plush king-sized bed. Cook up a storm on your own two-burner induction cooker and make use of a microwave, a fridge and even a compact dishwasher – all designed to make life as easy as possible. Each room also comes with a starter pack that includes all the essentials you’ll need during your stay.
Dining
At The Living Kitchen, you can socialize with fellow guests at the long communal tables – designed to encourage conversation. As well as breakfast, lunch and dinner (available in leisurely or express options), there’s a popular weekend brunch offering Mexican eggs, fluffy ricotta pancakes, pulled pork on brioche buns and smoked-salmon bagels.
Wellness
The hotel’s treatment room offers everything from yoga and meditation to traditional beauty treatments. Customized facials and restorative massages are also available, and there’s even a fashionable boutique gym, HIGH45, which offers high-intensity cardio classes at a discount to guests.
Location
Centrally located in Amsterdam and easily accessible by car, public transport and bicycle, you’ll find Zoku in the trend-setting Eastern Canal District. Surrounded by coffee-roasters and independent shops, there’s plenty to see in the local area, and most of the city’s sights are within a 10–30-minute stroll.
How to Get There
Reviews
We love walking so the fact that this hotel was situated a bit out of the way was not a problem. The room was cool and how they used the space was impressive . A little cold and the heating did not seem to go up very high. Only one extra pillow. Nice touch with complimentary teas in lofts. The check in process was a little painful, system did not work - so we had to go back to the good-ol human interaction. The brekkie was great so worth having it at hotel on w/e.
Chose to stay there to check out the hip and innovative concept of communal spaces, high-tech self-service, highly functional design. It‘s definitely interesting, although slightly heavy on concept and light on value for money. Some high-tech elements, like self-check-in, didn‘t work. The Zoku app is nice - it let me know that my room was ready earlier but same could have been achieved via text message as well.
The food selection is fresh and tasty but limited variety and a bit pricy (17 eur for breakfast buffet). The common space is „instagram-worthy“ but we didn‘t end up hanging out there. I needed to have a work phone call in the morning without waking up my companion and couldn‘t find a quiet space to have the call in the lounge area. There are very nice meeting rooms all around the lounge area but they are under lock and are bring rented out.
We stayed in a XL loft. I highly appreciate the functional design, the cozy bed up in a nook, the comfy sofa, the well equipped kitchenette, etc. However, we could have gotten a very luxurious airbnb apartment/house for this price.
This was nice to try once but the cool factor wears off. If I come back, I‘d rather stay in a high-end airbnb townhouse in the center for a more authentic experience of „living in amsterdam“.
I stayed at ZOKU with my friends during the ADE's in Oktober.. it was great.. amazing hotel, nice staff, very friendly and were always up to give advice... we had a great time - everything is very up-to-date, rooms are clean and breakfast is amazing. For lunch, the kitchen chef even prepared something different for me due to the fact that I am alergic to coriander... Thank you for this great time, we will be back next year.
Zoku is an amazing place to stay and hang out... Superb and nice staff/great rooms/fabulous and fast service. The breakfast was delicious... We where there for the ADE's... Best time and we will definitely go back to zoku next year!!
We were looking for something different on the start of this trip, and found it during our two night stay at Zoku. One of the most chill check-in procedures ever, with a very welcoming vibe by the whole Zoku team to help you navigate the DIY approach.
We went with the 'Zoku loft' and found the size perfect for two light luggage travellers. The shower and bed were extremely satisfying and the location (just out of town) was a short uber or walk away from Museum's, shopping, and Metro. The use of space and small feel to our loft rapidly warmed us up to how its done with all uses of space in Amsterdam.
If you're looking for that "hello, Mr and Mrs vibe" and not putting an explorer attitude into your trip this place will not be for you. We embraced the experience and got right into the culture the Zoku community promotes and because of that we really enjoyed our entire Amsterdam experience.
Thank you Zoku for giving us an experience distinctive from any hotel we've stayed to date.