Vienna hotels

I often meet Austrian friends at the top-floor bar here, taking the elevator up to the Chez Bernard restaurant overlooking the city’s 6th district – it’s one of the best hotels in Vienna for connecting with the local scene.

MOTTO is the passion project of Bernd Schlacher, who runs the canal-side Motto Am Fluss restaurant. For his first hotel, he was inspired by Jazz Age Paris and Vienna, commissioning local craftspeople to create Deco-style lamps and brass fittings, and decorating bedrooms with tropical-bird fabrics.

In the lobby, a cartoon mural of a bellhop and his cheetah roam the walls. It’s romantic but no museum piece: This is a modern Viennese hotel with charcoal lattes and buckwheat blinis on the menu, cocktail kits by the bed, and a standalone bakery that kneads excellent sourdough croissants. There’s even a little wood-lined sauna on the top floor.

This is a place I return to again and again: It’s one of the best hotels in Vienna for location, right opposite the Albertina art gallery and the State Opera. The cozy window seats are like having private boxes in the theater where you can watch Viennese life pass to and fro below.

The complimentary bottles of wine in each room are a pretty good idea, too. And compared to some hotels in the area, which can be a little fusty, this is a bright modern space with Scandinavian-style and mid-century furniture – as you’d expect from a hotel created by the late British design maestro Sir Terence Conran.

It’s one of the top choices for foodies, with an all-day menu in the first floor brasserie, running from truffled eggs and moules frites to classic Wiener schnitzel and some rather fancy cakes. For such a central location, it’s very good value for money.

At teatime in Vienna you may think of the Sachertorte, the chocolate-and-apricot cake that’s been the hotel’s sweet signature for almost a century. Every day, tourists queue for a table at the Sacher café. But while its bathrooms have Sachertorte shower gel, there’s more to the Sacher – one of the best hotels in Vienna for a traditional stay – than chocolate.

I like the fact it’s still family-run, and locals still come here for special occasions. It’s one of the best hotels in Vienna for people-watching – the walls are covered with photographs of the celebrities who’ve visited over the years, from Justin Bieber to Queen Elizabeth II.

Bedrooms are cloaked in velvet drapes, though the ones on the upper two floors are more contemporary. As for the cake, my tip is to save it for breakfast and head to the beautiful Blue Bar for a cocktail instead.

It has some competition, but this is one of the best hotels in Vienna for sheer historic grandeur. You can leave the 21st century at the door – stepping inside the Imperial feels like heading back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The first thing you’ll notice is the imperious marble staircase, followed by the portraits of Franz Joseph and various family members, and the chandeliers and antiques scattered around the bedrooms.

It’s a place where breakfast is worth dressing up for – order the signature egg in a glass. The wood-paneled Opus restaurant, meanwhile, creates still-life dishes from local ingredients. As a harpist serenades guests in the bar, it’s easy to imagine Gustav Mahler sitting in one corner, and former guests such as Alfred Hitchcock and Sophia Loren wandering past.

Yet, despite the palatial surroundings, the service is warm and welcoming, as befits a hotel that inspired Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel. Pure escapism.

The Ringstrasse is Vienna’s grand boulevard, sweeping around the museums, concert halls and grand cafés of the 1st district. Just across from the Stadtpark, the Ritz-Carlton occupies four former palaces on the Ringstrasse and really makes use of the space. There’s ample room for a spa (including a 50-foot swimming pool) and a rooftop bar with breezy views over the historic heart of the city.

I think it combines period detail (original wood paneling and ceiling frescoes in some rooms) with a fresh contemporary outlook really well. Overall, it’s one of the best hotels in Vienna for all-round comfort and pin-bright service. It has impeccable connections too, working with the Albertina museum and the Wiener Symphoniker on two of its signature suites, one of which has its own painting easel.

The first-floor restaurants are relaxed spaces, almost food-court in feel, with a well-regarded steakhouse and a kitchen with an authentic Sicilian menu.

The Josefine is from the same stable as The Guesthouse, although it feels very different. A boudoir-style hotel tucked away in the less-touristy 6th district, Mariahilf, the hotel has a personality inspired by a previous occupant, Josephine de Bourblanc, who fled here after the Russian Revolution.

I think it’s one of the best hotels in Vienna for a romantic stay, with standalone tubs and bedrooms in green and burgundy illuminated by original stained-glass windows – Room 108 has a nice window seat. There’s a real Art Deco, “Vienna loves the Jazz Age” feel with tasseled lamps and scallop-back chairs along with vintage photos and artwork; a nice touch are the quotes from Josephine’s diary.

There’s even a speakeasy bar at the back, with one of the longest cocktail menus I’ve ever seen, and you can spin some jazz (and plenty of 80s pop) in the vinyl lounge.

The Rosewood made a big impression when it landed in 2022, taking over a former bank on a site where Mozart once lived, right next to the dome of St Peter’s Church. It is also located just steps from the Spanish Riding School and the cathedral.

Best to get your bearings from the rooftop bar, which gets creative with Austrian spirits – I felt I had to order the Vienna Calling, a chocolately old fashioned garnished with a picture of 80s singer Falco.

There’s plenty of local talent on show, from the graffiti murals on the roof to the tropical jungle painted by Marie Hartig in the salon, while the bedrooms are inspired by the Wiener Jugendstil design of the 1920s, with subtle geometrics. The restaurant gives guests an excellent crash course in Austrian cooking, with catfish, pumpkin and Tafelspitz on the menu.

As the name suggests, Vienna’s central Goldenes Quartier ripples with high-end names and luxury goods, meaning this former bank is in good company. With its Neoclassical columns, marble floors, mother-of-pearl details and hat-doffing doormen, it has the kind of palatial grandeur that Franz Joseph would have appreciated.

The Park Hyatt opened in 2017, ushering in a new era of global big-hitters in the city and seemingly sparing no expense, with motifs inspired by tortoiseshell hair combs and Art Nouveau brooches. The spa, meanwhile, is set in the bank vault and is home to my favorite pool in town – 50 feet long and designed so it seems you’re swimming over gold ingots.

For sheer wow factor, head to the showpiece brasserie for a cocktail or plate of venison saltimbocca, lit by two enormous lights that resemble dandelion seed heads. It’s one of the best hotels in Vienna for splurging on.

Named after a butterfly and fluttering down on the central Ringstrasse in 2023, this is a sensitive restoration of a 19th-century palace which draws out the original character of the building but adds a contemporary shine of its own.

It’s one of the best hotels in Vienna with an art collection – the Viennese family who own the Amauris have been collecting for years, and walls are filled with impressionist landscapes and portraits from names such as Olga Wisinger-Florian and Alexander Rothaug.

The Glasswing restaurant is zero-waste, with dishes including lobster with cauliflower and kohlrabi with spruce and buttermilk. The original elevator takes you up to spacious bedrooms, mainly taupe-and-white with emerald-green armchairs and modern four-posters.

My favorite place, though, is the swimming pool, which is set beneath a glass dome.

Easily identified by the living wall that covers most of its facade, the Gilbert is one of those youthful hotels that draws in locals in search of a coffee or after-work cocktail as much as visitors to the city.

I love the location, close to the MuseumsQuartier and Spittelberg Grätzel, and you can grab a bike to explore the city (Vienna is very bike-friendly). Bedrooms are dressed in blue and white and contain record players. There are plenty of single rooms for solo travelers, as well as loft spaces with outdoor saunas and showers.

It packs a lot in, with a well-equipped gym and sauna, though the main focus is the café. Here, chef Parvin Razavi creates fresh, well-thought-out dishes with local ingredients such as asparagus, river trout and herbs from the hotel garden, along with labneh and Japanese flourishes. The Gilbert is one of the best hotels in Vienna for an easy-going stay, with super-friendly staff.