Lost weekend: Amsterdam

Luke Leitch5 April 2012

When the shit hits the fan, switch rooms,' counsels my friend the fool down the phone, for once exhibiting something other than pure foolishness.

'Get a flight, get a room, and I'll show you why I live in Amsterdam. You'll forget all about her, you tedious man.' He makes sense, for a change, and barely 48 hours later the fool is completely vindicated - at least, nearly.

Once over there, on a stage, distinctly confused but overwhelmingly happy, dancing next to the three Dutch Elvises, the two weirdo acid-crazed blonde nymphettes and the fool, that romantic cataclysm seems a lot farther away than London, little more than a barely remembered blip receding into the distance. Ha!

Only Destiny's Child confounds the mission to forget, because the fool keeps belting out the chorus to 'Emotions' during Billy Nasty's breakdowns in a well-judged attempt to wind me up. Beyonc? sure wouldn't like his style,and neither do I.

The lure of cannabis aplenty and legal, window-dressed hookers draws countless stag parties to Amsterdam every year, but the secret to a good time here, according to the fool, is to avoid the very attractions for which Amsterdam is so renowned: dope ('because it makes you think circular, self-defeating, self-indulgent bollocks') and whores ('because they make you think you're irredeemable scum - and you're right, dammit.')

Instead, after a mini bar-fuelled consultation in my hotel - during which the fateful Destiny's video comes up on MTV - we determine to do it like the locals.

Tapas is hardly a Dutch delicacy but Taberna Pasodoble, a low-roofed cellar decorated with ancient bull-fight posters, is packed with red-lipped locals knocking back rioja from chipped glass beakers, sucking prawns and guzzling chorizo with the abandon of professional trenchermen.

Squidded up to the gills we emerge into the freezing. The fool bikes us through a maze of canal-lined streets and shadowy back alleys, me sitting on his panier-rack, and an errant wire rips a meaningful hole in my trousers. Over my arse.

The mojitos in Finch are at least as good as those at Lab on Old Compton Street, so good, in fact, that the fool soon starts winking suggestively at a girlie who looks terrifyingly like Joe Bugner. She flexes her neck in return, and he thinks better of it. This Jordaan local feels a bit like any bar in EC2, studiedly low-key with formulaic knock-off Wallpaper*-clone decor.

The crowd, however, are less styled - there's even some non-ironic blazer-wearing afoot and the girls look like they've been dressed by Trinny and Susannah. Sadly everyone is determined to speak Dutch so the fool recounts his recent madnesses and we stick with those mojitos until wanderlust hits.

Rum-fuelled and blithering we dump the bike outside Mazzo, a small club. It's a gem of a venue, dominated by a huge basalt bar, but at midnight it's pretty deserted. Spectacularly, there is a guy wearing a smiley T-shirt and a pair of white gloves - and he means it. We sidle onwards into the night - and to its nirvana.

Where to go

Best tapas:

Best Bar/restaurant: The Supper Club, Jonge Roelensteeg 21 (0031 20 638 0513).
Club: Kremlin @ Cubic, Saturdays. Jan van Galenstraat 6/10.www.kremlin.nl

Best for the morning after: Barney's, Haarlemmerstraat 102, Grachtengordel (0031 20 625 9761).

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