Where to play in Amsterdam
If Amsterdam has anything like a gayborhood, it is less a single enclave than a cluster of zones and landmarks in and around the historic canal belt. At the heart of it all sits Reguliersdwarsstraat. This street next to the Flower Market gets properly crowded on summer nights and Sunday afternoons, as bars like Soho and Taboo spill onto the pavement until much of the crowd is absorbed back into Club NYX. It remains the city’s most visible queer strip—festive, easy, touristy—and during Pride, memorably chaotic. From here, with the exception of Club RAUM on the western outer reaches of town, nothing is far away: a pleasurable stroll along the city’s glorious canals, or, if you wish to blend in, a short bike ride.
Dedicated lesbian bars remain rarer than they should be, but Amsterdam still has two: Bar Buka at Albert Cuypstraat, and Café Saarein on Elandsstraat, a longstanding fixture of the city’s lesbian scene. For one of the world’s oldest surviving queer bars, head to Zeedijk, where the legendary, openly lesbian fish vendor Bet van Beeren took over Café ’t Mandje from her uncle in 1927, when this was still the rough-and-tumble port district catering to lonely sailors’ desires. The sex workers never really left, and the adjacent Red Light District still shapes the atmosphere, even as Zeedijk blurs into Chinatown. Just a minute away on the same street, don’t miss drag bingo on Tuesdays at The Queen’s Head, one of Amsterdam’s quintessential ‘brown cafés’—think dark wood, low lighting, neighborhood regulars, and a pleasantly unpolished pub atmosphere—but spruced up with red velvet and disco balls.
Closer to Central Station, The Eagle on Warmoesstraat and The Cuckoo’s Nest on Nieuwezijds Kolk serve a male, fetish-coded crowd, with the Mister B store at the corner of Prinsengracht and Rozengracht providing the outfits and gear. A somewhat similarly bearded and sex-positive but more laid-back energy extends to Kerkstraat, where nights that start with “just a few drinks” and a game of pool at Spijker Bar often derail at Club Church—a venue that is decidedly less pious and preachy than its name would suggest, but delivers spiritual nourishment all the same.
More civic than nocturnal: the Homomonument at Westermarkt—three pink granite triangles set into the pavement close to the Anne Frank House—is the world’s first memorial to people persecuted for their homosexuality, and a natural gathering point throughout Pride. Pink Point, the LGBTQIA+ kiosk, is right there, with maps, local tips, flyers, and queer souvenirs. Nearby Prik is the obvious next stop, with a sidestreet terrace tucked behind a bubblegum-pink barricade of planters and parasols, and a long list of gin and tonics and bubbles on tap.