Where to dance Salsa in Amsterdam

Are you coming to visit Amsterdam and wonder how is the Salsa scene here?

If you’re a Salsa addicted like me, when you travel for pleasure or work you wanna check the local Salsa scene and have a taste of the best clubs and parties around

So many people are asking:
Where to dance Salsa in Amsterdam?
How is the Salsa scene in Holland?
What styles are more danced?

Well, let’s answer one by one.

First of all, I should say that I’m from Milano, Italy, and there the Salsa scene is HUGE… so I was spoiled in a way, but also feed up by the attitude of the dancers there.

Well, after almost 4 years of living and dancing here in Holland I can say that Salsa scene is small but very active!
It’s possible to dance in Amsterdam almost everyday – seriously from Wednesday to Sunday.

For the Salsa tourist coming to Amsterdam is disappoiting to notice that there are not many Salsa Club.
This is because the Salsa scene in Holland is mainly made by parties and school socials that are not very easy to find for the tourists… unless you read this post indeed

About styles, here everything is danced: on1, on2 (that is growing), cuban, chacha, bachata, merengue (as it’s very popular in the ex colonies like Antilles), and even Zouk!
Below some tips about the best clubs and parties to check out.

Clubs

There’s only one Salsa club that I recommend to visit in the city:
Cantinero – Taberna salon de baile – in Marie Heinekenplein.
This is THE place that you don’t wanna miss to see how the local scene is.
If you’re accustomed to big “Salsodromo” like Tropicana (Milano), well you’ll think “is that all??” but don’t understimate this bar/restaurant.
Cantinero is small, rustic, cheap, but still the place where you have a great welcoming warm feeling with the wood decorations and soft lights, together with a crowd that is, well, 100% Amsterdam style with latinos, africanos, Dutch and everything in between

The biggest Salsa school in town, Extremos Dance Company, is teaching there every week day from 7pm to 10pm.
When the classes are over the floors (small and big room) are available for free dancing.
Almost (but never totally) empty on Mondays and Tuesdays, Wednesday start getting better but the best day is usually Thursday, when you can dance among beginners as well as professional top dancers in only 5×5 square meters
Fridays are the most busy days, cool before 11sh, become impossibly crowded afterward… good for sociaizing, bad for dancing.
Saturday are less busy then Fridays but not much of dancers around, and Sundays is considered the Cuban night for music played and crowd and can be great.

There are other misleading places in town with attractive names, like La Rumba, El Punto Latino, Brazil Bar… well let me tell you: if you like latin clubs with people looking around and no much dancing then go there.
If you’re looking for Salsa places when you can dance and get to know people, then go somewhere else

Anyway, we’re talking about dancing here so let’s continue with the options.

Badcuyp – this is the cuban club in town – really difficult to find NY or LA dancers there
The best night is on Wednesday, and good thing is that is close to Cantinero if the night is not going as you expected.

Parties

This is actually a too complex and too long list, so I recommend you to check this great agenda at http://www.salsa.nl/Agenda/home.html for a full list.

I just put down a list of the parties I recommend absolutely to go:
- Copa Cabana (every other Friday): it’s out of the center and you’ll probably need a taxi, but crowd is good and goes on till 3am. Also, you can see there people dancing ZOUK, a dance that is popular in few other places outside Holland but still interesting to see.
- SalsaLounge (last Sunday of the month): once more popular, now still attracts many mixed people because has a latin-house room and a Salsa room. It’s good fun and the location (Hotel Arena) is just great to see, even if the floor is unfortunately far to be good.

Recently Amsterdam has lost some of the Salsa action in favor of other cities that now have great parties… the top for me is Utrecht (40Km away from Amsterdam, 30m by train).
If you really want to have a great Salsa night don’t miss these parties:
- Salsa Casa Loca (last Saturday of the month): I always have a blast there, absolutely the best location/dancers/music!
- Winkel Van Sinkel (1st & 3rd Sunday of the month): Very good location and floor, sometime the level of dancers is not very high but I would check it out! Watch out that close at midnight… so be there Dutch time (=early)

I know that is difficult to find updated list of clubs/parties… I remember once in Copenhagen ending up in adresses of clubs that have been closed years ago and was really annoying.

So, feel free to contact me if you’re coming to Amsterdam and will be nice to go out dancing in the right places!