Amsterdam's mayor Job Cohen laid out plans Monday to curb prostitution in the Dutch city, replacing many of the notorious red-light "windows" with upmarket restaurants and art galleries.

"We are going to clean up, and massively cut down on the number of prostitutes' windows and coffee shops (selling soft drugs), and fast-food joints," said Cohen at a press conference.

While he said that prostitution would not be outlawed entirely, specific streets and squares within the city's historic centre would be banned from housing sex commerce.

That would spell the end for about three quarters of the 400 prostitutes' windows in the red-light district of Wallen, according to figures from the Centre for Prostitution Information, cited by the press agency ANP.

"The romantic notion of Wallen is out-of-date," Cohen said, saying reducing the windows where prostitutes wait for customers was part of the battle against sex-trafficking and the black economy.

"We must reclaim this area and give it back to Amsterdammers," deputy mayor Lodwijk Asscher said.

"It is high time we got to work on this. The days when we allowed 'punks' to reign supreme over our city centre are finished," he added.

Amsterdam announced in September that it was setting aside 15 million euros (A$25.2 million) for the purchase of 51 windows, encouraging plans to attract new tourism investment that now include a 120-million-euro underground car park.

The plan intends to replace the current brothels, souvenir shops and fast-food restaurants with high-class restaurants and art-galleries - notably around the main plaza in front of the central train station, the first sight that greets many tourists.

Cohen also said he wished to discourage "vertical drinkers" - the type of tourist who simply wanders around the picturesque canal area, a can of beer in one hand, and contributes little to the local economy.

Amsterdam has been synonymous with its red-light district for more than 100 years, although prostitution has only been legal in the Netherlands since 2000.

The scheme is called "Project 1012" - a reference to the postal code for the district