This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
It’s no wonder Vienna wins titles for liveability — the Austrian capital fits imperial-scale cultural riches within its compact city limits, and yet vineyards and wooded hills are just a 15-minute metro ride away. Baroque mansions crowd the historic core around the cathedral and girdling the old town is the Ringstrasse, a sequence of grand avenues, home to palaces, art galleries and concert halls. Vienna’s other districts are no less desirable, with quirky museums and beloved local coffee houses. Wherever you stay, you’re likely to see Viennese character in the look of your lodgings — the city offers plenty of material for imaginative hotel designers to work with.
1. Hotel Sacher
Best for: living heritage
Forget Waldorf salad — for a hotel namesake dish, it’s hard to beat the chocolate-and-apricot cake served at the Sacher since it opened in 1876. Hotel guests get to skip the queues at the two on-site cafes where the Sacher-Torte is still made to its original 34-step recipe. The city’s only family-run luxury hotel also offers a generous slice of Viennese history in its interiors and setting, neighbouring the opera house on the Ringstrasse. Musically named suites and classically elegant rooms make only slightly less imperial use of the chandeliers and velvety wallpaper that grace the public spaces, including the Blue Bar, and Red and Green restaurants. The Marble Hall’s bountiful breakfast buffet includes a cake corner. For all the grandeur, though, the hotel’s many nooks mean it can still feel surprisingly intimate. Rooms from €590 (£505).
2. Hotel Motto
Best for: weekend brunch
After years building a restaurant group focused on Austrian cuisine, Motto’s Francophile owner wanted to bring a bit of Parisian spirit to his first hotel venture. There are chandeliers and sofas rehomed from the Paris Ritz and tasselled touches of the boudoir in the 91 bedrooms. The street-level bakery masters both French and Austrian pastries, while wiener schnitzel rubs shoulders with coq au vin on the menu at top-floor Chez Bernard, set at the corner of the 1870s building, under a striking new lattice roof. The restaurant is particularly popular for its a la carte breakfast and brunch on weekends, for which hotel guests should book ahead. There are local touches, too, such as in the custom bathroom tiles and toiletries from the city’s Saint Charles Apothecary brand. A couple of rooms have balconies right above Mariahilfer Strasse, Vienna’s major shopping street. Rooms from €160 (£140).
3. Die Josefine Hotel
Best for: cocktail fans
Opened in 2021, this is the latest incarnation for a typically tall and narrow Viennese zinshaus (apartment block) that has hosted a series of hotels since the 1920s. Its design has been reset back to the jazz era style of its first ancestor, and the 49 rooms and two split-level suites are kitted out with art deco mirrors and plush, scallop-shelled armchairs. By the entrance, the ‘Phonothek’ lounge holds around 3,000 records, covering classic jazz and many other genres, which guests can pick out to play on the turntable by the honesty bar. Downstairs is the velvet-draped Barfly’s Club, which opened in 1990 under a previous incumbent and has built a strong local reputation thanks to its speakeasy vibe, signature rum cocktails and library of hundreds of rare whiskies. Rooms from €170 (£145), B&B.
Since opening in 1876, Hotel Sacher has kept its history and tradition as the city’s only family-run luxury hotel.
Photograph by Hotel Sacher
4. The Leo Grand
Best for: quirky design
The restoration of this baroque building just yards from the Stephansdom Cathedral was a challenging one, but the owners still found time to have some fun. The style draws on Viennese life and politics in the era of Emperor Leopold I (1640–1705), so as well as salvaged roof timbers in some of the bedrooms, best of all in the split-level Leopold Suite, you’ll find headboards inspired by the shape of the namesake ruler’s notoriously jutting ‘Habsburg lip’. The era’s fondness for royal menageries is translated into bedside lamps with monkey supports and feathered shades, and fanciful murals in the lobby. In the central courtyard — under a canopy that opens and shuts — is a restaurant serving sushi platters with Asian-Austrian fusion flourishes. Rooms from €350 (£300).
5. Hotel Indigo Vienna Naschmarkt
Best for: a peaceful haven
A short walk from the food stalls of the Naschmarkt, the Indigo shields itself from city hubbub with a little help from its neighbours. A tall but narrow entrance building — home to 21 of the 158 rooms — leads to the inner gardens of a large residential block. Here, the main part of the hotel spreads out around a sunken courtyard. Lounge areas are filled with mid-century-style furniture while, in the rooms, Wiener Geflecht (Vienna’s characteristic rattan weave) makes an appearance in the furniture and the rug patterns. Rooms from €129 (£110).
6. Hotel Topazz Lamee
Best for: film-star looks
This hotel is separated into two distinct yet complementary halves on either side of a central old town street. The Topazz is a new build from 2012, inspired by the Wiener Werkstätte, a local craft movement that was a forerunner to art deco. The style is reflected in the bedrooms’ large, oval windows. In a 1930s building across the road, the Lamee has touches of that era’s Hollywood glamour — it was part-named for Austrian-American film star Hedy Lamarr — with patterned-ebony wall panels and bold floral carpets. Every guest gets a bottle of wine from the hotel’s own organic winery within Vienna’s city limits. Rooms from €230 (£200).
7. JO&JOE Vienna
Best for: socialising
An IKEA store has the first four floors of the building next to the Westbahnhof station, while five and six belong to JO&JOE. The globe-trotting hostel group has brought a few Alpine apres-ski touches to Vienna, with ski lift chairs in the lobby-lounge and a giant, dirndl-clad Lego figure by the bar. Private rooms and dorms sleeping four to 12 feature wood-framed beds in raw concrete spaces softened with spray-painted cityscapes. There are weekly karaoke and salsa nights and a roof terrace hosting a bar in summer. Rooms from €80 (£70).
The Leo Grand hotel restored the baroque building and transformed the central courtyard into an outdoor restaurant.
Photograph by Werner Streitfelder
8. Henriette City Hotel
Best for: families
Breakfast sets the tone at Henriette: certified organic products, homemade cakes and granolas and honey from the rooftop hives. The hotel is in a nondescript former apartment block, with a makeover planned, but there’s individuality in the 72 rooms, such as the specially commissioned photo prints of Vienna. Families will appreciate the adjoining room options and availability of travel cots. The hotel is in quiet Leopoldstadt, two stops on the metro from the old town, and near the famous Prater amusement park. Rooms from €115 (£100), B&B.
9. Hotel Beethoven
Best for: music-lovers
Well located between Ringstrasse museums and Naschmarkt snack options, the Hotel Beethoven faces the theatre where its namesake composed his only opera around 1804. The corner townhouse has rooms across six floors, each with its own Viennese theme, from coffeehouse culture to strong women of the fin de siècle. The rooms are named for different historic figures and phenomena, and decorated with plenty of individuality; you might find a boldly graphic poster from the Secession movement — Vienna’s take on art nouveau — paired with a chair in the homely Biedermeier style from earlier in the 19th century. Below the guest rooms is a cocktail bar and, adjoining the breakfast buffet, a salon for complimentary afternoon coffee, tea and cake, with a grand piano for chamber music concerts every Sunday. Rooms from €145 (£125), B&B.
10. Ruby Lissi Hotel & Bar
A fantastical departures board hangs in the lobby-bar, promising trips to Atlantis and Outer Space. Mosaic shelves of vintage suitcases and telephones continue the theme of travellers past. This solidly set 19th-century building on the edge of the old town has 127 bedrooms in a more sparing style than the lobby, but with classic touches in the cherry wood panelling and button-tufted headboards. One surprising perk is the acoustic or electric guitars you can borrow for your own jam session. There are two other ‘Rubies’ in town, differently styled, east and west of the centre. Rooms from €135 (£115).
Published in the April 2024 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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