Do & Co

Description:

• 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 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 include 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.

• © Frommer's 2012

Awards:

Frommer's

•  Highly Recommended 2010