By: Chris ⎜ Last updated
Amerikalinjen sits at Jernbanetorget, directly beside Oslo Central Station. You step off the airport train, cross the square, and you are at the hotel. The hotel opened in 2019 inside the former headquarters of the Norwegian America Line, the shipping company that carried thousands of Norwegians to the United States from 1913 onward. It received a MICHELIN Key in 2025, the first year Keys were awarded to the Nordic Countries, and a Forbes Travel Guide Recommended rating the same year.
Book it if you want a polished city-base hotel with a strong breakfast, good service and character, and one of the best cocktail bars in Oslo without leaving the building.
Central location
The proximity to Oslo S is not just "central" in the vague hotel-marketing sense. It means the Flytoget airport express and the regular Vy train both drop you 3 minutes from the front door. The T-bane, trams and buses all stop at Jernbanetorget. MUNCH is a 10-minute walk. The Opera House roof is closer than that.
The trade-off is that Jernbanetorget is Oslos largest transport hub, not a pretty square and not many great options for food and drinks outside the hotel. If you want harbour views from the lobby or a neighbourhood feel with small bars and shops around the corner, this is the wrong part of Oslo for that.
Youngstorget and Torggata
Although the area around the hotel is not the nicest, you are very close to some of the best restaurants and bars in Oslo. Walk north from Amerikalinjen and you hit the bar and restaurant area around Youngstorget and Torggata in about five to seven minutes. This is where Oslo locals eat and drink. The square and the streets feeding into it have more good restaurants and bars per block than anywhere else in central Oslo.
Himkok, on Storgata 27, ranked No. 14 on the World's 50 Best Bars list in 2025. It is a cocktail bar and craft distillery behind an unmarked door, producing its own aquavit, gin and vodka in-house. The space spreads across several rooms and floors, with a courtyard bar in summer. If you only go to one bar outside the hotel during your stay, this is the one.
The area runs the full range of options. Oslo Street Food on Youngstorget has several food stalls and bars in an old bathhouse building, good for a quick meal. Torggata Botaniske does cocktails in a greenhouse-style room full of plants. Fiskeriet on Youngstorget is solid for seafood without the tourist markup. Arakataka is a Michelin-listed restaurant doing seasonal Nordic small plates with a daily-changing menu. It is relaxed, the wine list is deep, and you can eat at the bar if you do not want a full sitting.
The heritage building
The original 1919 headquarters has been restored with the grand staircase, vaulted ceilings and parquet floors intact. The New York references, the cocktail bar, the basement jazz club, and the hotel's name all trace back to the Norwegian America Line's transatlantic crossings. On the second floor, you can see a reconstructed version of the original company's waiting area, complete with period details.
The public spaces are where the building pulls ahead of most Oslo hotels in this range, offering high ceilings, a covered courtyard (Haven), dark bar corners, and a library styled like a ship's common area."
Great breakfast
Breakfast at Atlas Brasserie is one of the best reasons to choose Amerikalinjen. The setup is a Nordic-American buffet with pancakes, bagels, bacon, Eggs Benedict, omelettes and a solid spread of Scandinavian staples. Make sure you book a rate with breakfast included, it is the highlight here. The words "ridiculously good" appear in reviews more than once.
If you are staying over a Saturday, Atlas runs a Saturday brunch with live jazz.
Small rooms
The room categories are Standard, Superior, Deluxe, Fortuna Suite and Triton Suite. Standard starts at 19 m² with a queen bed. Superior starts at 20 m² with a king. That means Superior is not a meaningful space upgrade, but rather an upgrade in bed size and view. The first category that changes the room from "compact city room" to "room where you might actually want to spend time" is Deluxe, starting at 28 m² with a separate seating area.
The rooms have high ceilings, herringbone wood floors, mosaic-tiled bathrooms and Norwegian designer lighting (Birger Dahl, Hadeland Glassverk), so they feel considered even though they are not large.
The Fortuna Suites (from 37 m²) add a separate sitting area, a spacious bathroom with soaking tub, and some have balconies with city views. The Triton Suite is the top category at 50 m², with a balcony facing the Opera. If you want connecting rooms, note that Standard-to-Standard connections are not available.
Noise
Amerikalinjen's best feature is also the thing that can make a front-facing room noisy: it is beside Oslo Central Station. Rooms facing Jernbanetorget will hear the square. Trams are running (and screeching) right outside your window if you're on a lower floor facing the square. Rooms facing the back or Haven are quieter.
Summer heat
As is common in Norway, hotel air conditioning is not what you might be used to in warmer countries. However, Oslo may get seriously warm during the infrequent heat spells, and the rooms can run warmer than some people find comfortable.
Pier 42 cocktail bar
Pier 42 is one of the better cocktail bars in Norway, not just in Oslo hotels. It has won Best Cocktail Bar in Norway in 2021 and 2022 (Bartenders Choice Award), Hotel Bar of the Year in Norway (Falstaff Bar Guide 2026), and the bar's Adrián Michalčík won Global Bartender of the Year 2022 at Diageo World Class. It has also landed a spot on the list of the 100 best cocktail bars in the world. The current concept menu is called The Captain's Diary, themed around the first Norwegian America Line ship's transatlantic crossing.
Pier 42 does not take seat reservations. Go early if you want a good spot.
The hotel also runs a floating bartender service, which brings Pier 42 cocktails to your room or other spaces in the hotel. Useful when you are back from a long day and do not want to compete for bar seats.
Gustav jazz club
Gustav is the basement jazz club, named after the founder of the Norwegian America Line. It has its own entrance, a proper stage, and a sound system built for the room. Under the artistic direction of Felix Peikli, the concerts feature both Norwegian and international musicians. It gets consistently great reviews as one of the best live jazz experiences in Oslo.
Doors open at 19:00 and 21:30. Concerts start 30 minutes later. If there is a Gustav concert during your stay and you have any interest in jazz, use it. Very few Oslo hotels offer proper evening entertainment of this quality.
Gym and sauna
The gym is open 24 hours and very well equipped for a hotel gym with squat racks, a good selection of dumbbells, kettlebells and the most common exercise machines.
Although not a spa hotel, the wellness area is well designed and has a nice Finnish sauna, rain showers and heated mosaic beds. Great to relax after a day of sightseeing. For a full spa, check out the options below.
How Amerikalinjen compares
Oslo's other hotels in roughly the same bracket are Sommerro, The Thief, and Hotel Continental. Together the four are probably Oslos best hotels at the moment, all received MICHELIN Keys in 2025. Sommerro and The Thief has full spas with pools.
Sommerro is in Frogner, a residential neighbourhood west of the centre. It is a bigger, flashier hotel in a restored 1930s Art Deco building with a rooftop pool, a full spa, and more dining options. If you want a hotel you can spend a whole day inside, Sommerro is the stronger choice. Less conveniently located for the major attractions, and you will need a tram or taxi to reach Bjørvika and the eastern museums.
The Thief sits on Tjuvholmen beside the Astrup Fearnley contemporary art museum. It is the waterfront-and-art option, with rooms facing the fjord and a full spa. The neighbourhood has galleries, restaurants and a small beach. It's a quiet area with no traffic (cars are not allowed on Tjuvholmen). But it is on a peninsula, about a 15 minutes walk to the nearest metro and train station, so getting to most places in the city takes longer.
Hotel Continental is near the National Theatre, more traditionally luxurious (a notch above Amerikalinjen), and a better base for the western half of the centre (the Royal Palace, Aker Brygge, the National Museum). It is a fourth-generation family-run hotel with more old-world formality than Amerikalinjen. Its location is excellent, sitting in an area noticeably nicer than Jernbanetorget. It is right next to the Nationaltheatret station, making the Airport Express train highly accessible.
What to do nearby
Other hotels nearby
