Here are three hotels that are handy for Vienna’s amazing Neo-Renaissance Opera House, finished in 1869 by architects August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll. The Opera offers more than 200 different performances a year.
Hotel Sacher Vienna is immediately behind the Opera House. Built in 1876, it now has 149 rooms on seven floors, and interiors by Pierre-Yves Rochon, with a lot of help from its owner, Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthner. The mansard-roofed rooms on the top floor, overlooking the Opera House, are particularly popular. Stay here for character, and for a cosy, familial atmosphere.
Elisabeth Gürtler-Mauthner, a former head of the annual Vienna Opera Ball, is one of those amazing people who has time for everything. She runs the city’s unique Spanish Riding School and, with her daughter and son-in-law, heads Sacher Cafés, selling the world-famous Sachertorte throughout Austria. Nothing beats having a mid-morning slice of the dense chocolate cake in the hotel, while enjoying a cup of coffee with general manager Reiner Heilmann.
The Gürtler family, through the Elisabeth Gürtler Foundation, now also owns the Hotel Bristol, Vienna, immediately to the east of the Opera House on Kärntner Ring. Again, Pierre-Yves Rochon is coming onboard to transform the traditional building, which dates back to 1892. Favourites of the 140 rooms undoubtedly include the new mezzanine suites, say number 36, formed out of what was the old Serk restaurant.
Stay here and the view looks straight across at the Opera House. Other popular rooms include the Caruso Suite and the Prince of Wales Suite, with a private gym and sauna and a library that includes the 12-volume Voyage Au Pole Sud. The hotel, run by GM Gerald Krischek, has a conservatory-like gym on the fifth floor of the hotel. The intimate Korso restaurant, where Gerald Angelmahr is chef, has some of Vienna’s finest dining. It is the perfect place to try the staple Austrian wienerschnitzel, the flattened veal escalope bathed in egg, flour and white bread crumbs before being pan-fried and served immediately.
The adjacent main restaurant, with classic panelling and chandeliers, offers a copious breakfast buffet. One tip here: go down to the sub-ground level to the brilliant ‘garden floor’ that the Gürtlers have created. Elegant meeting-event rooms appear to look out at idyllic rural scenes, with lighting that changes as the day progresses.
The Ritz-Carlton, Vienna, on Schubertring (the Ring), is six minutes’ walk from the Opera House. Opened in August 2012, this is a conversion of the Erste Bank headquarters, originally built in the 1860s. Today it is owned by Verny Capital, which also owns the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow, designed like this 202-room beauty by Peter Schilling. Of the 202 rooms, choose one that is handy for the lovely seventh-floor Club Lounge, ideally one that also has a view along the Ring.
Stay here for the Guerlain Spa (interestingly, the bathroom toiletries are by Asprey), the 60-foot indoor stainless steel pool and the summer-only rooftop terrace. Also, enjoy the casual-chic Dstrikt restaurant, overseen by top local chef Wini Brugger. Try his grandmother’s Carinthian cream-cheese dumplings with brown butter and endive salad. Other specials at this elegant hotel run by GM Matthias Vogt are the chocolate sommelier, working the lobby every afternoon, and the trendy D-bar, with DJ and cigars.
