In 2006, the management of one of Vienna’s most consistently high-profile restaurants commandeered four floors of the Haas Haus, originally meant to be a skyscraper shopping mall, and transformed it into a stylish hotel. The result is a quirky but relentlessly upscale and obsessively design-conscious venue that almost everyone in Vienna has an opinion about. The black hulk of a building seems to grate against St. Stephan’s Cathedral, which is immediately across the square. To reach the hotel reception, you’ll take an elevator from a sterile-looking ground-floor entryway up to level six, where additional dramas unfold. The registration area is awkwardly positioned within a busy area that otherwise functions as a vestibule for a stylish and glossy-looking cocktail bar (Onyx Bar).
Rooms are artfully minimalist and very comfortable, with yummy but hard-to-define colors of toffee and putty Sybaritic details including showers with visible interiors. Bedrooms have mahogany louvered doors, lots of polished travertine, dark-grained hardwoods, and floor plans that follow the curved walls and tucked-away balconies of the Haas Haus. Views from your windows encompass the endlessly roiling crowds scurrying around the all-pedestrian Graben and the Stephansplatz. Critics view the hotel, with some justification, as cultish and snobbish, with lots of gloss but no particular excess or charm.
Facilities:
Restaurant; bar; 24-hr. room service; laundry service/dry cleaning
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip.