Liana, graceful company in Amsterdam Centrum

People notice the stillness before anything else. Liana does not fidget, does not reach for her phone and does not fill a silence simply because it has lasted a second longer than usual. At 28 that is rarer than beauty, and it changes the shape of an evening inside the first ten minutes, particularly for anyone who has spent the day being talked at. What they notice next is that she is reading the room, and reading you. She is intuitive in a practical way, adjusting her pace to yours without making a show of it, and gentle in a manner that has nothing to do with being timid. Physically she is 167 centimetres and slim, her hair long and straight and chestnut brown, her eyes a soft dark brown, with years of pilates behind the way she carries herself.

Her reading is French, mostly novels, mostly the kind where very little happens and everything matters, and she is delighted when a guest turns out to have opinions about any of it. Gardening is the surprise, a small balcony run with real ambition, and she and Margo compare notes on what survives an Amsterdam winter. Pilates is the third fixed point of her week, and the reason she can sit beautifully still for three hours without ever looking posed.

Her gate is Amsterdam Centrum, minutes from most of the canal hotels, and she works in English at a measured pace that suits long conversations. Book her for a dinner rather than an errand. Liana is the companion for the night when you want the volume turned down, the conversation turned up, and no part of the evening rushing toward its own conclusion. Travellers coming off a red eye tend to say she is the first calm hour they have had in days.

Quiet is the whole design. Liana arrives at a canal hotel a few minutes from her own door, sits down, and the volume of the evening drops without her doing anything visible to cause it. Her phone stays out of sight, a pause is allowed to sit where it falls, and nothing gets hurried along.

Dinner should be small, softly lit, with tables far enough apart to talk properly. She reads French novels, the ones where almost nothing happens and all of it matters, and she is visibly pleased when a guest has a view on any of them. Afterwards, a slow walk beside the water rather than a taxi. People arriving off an overnight flight tend to describe the whole thing afterwards as the first unhurried hour of the trip.