We’ve been in Vienna a mere three hours after I suppose I spy our lodge on the wall of town’s hottest artwork gallery. Excitedly we scrutinise the print (dated 1911) for clues, earlier than Mr Smith gently factors out that our present handle, Resort Motto – although equally and strikingly wedge-shaped – is, with its balconies and colonnades, clearly from a a lot earlier period than the stark Alfred Loos-designed construction in entrance of us.
Nonetheless, it’s indicative of the keep’s notableness that neither of us would have been significantly stunned to see it up there – from the stylish Chinoiserie-print workers uniforms (which I later study are by Austrian designer Lena Hoschek) to the big Franz West masks sculpture within the marble stairwell (apparently a sarcastic commentary on the Viennese tendency to gawp – and it’s laborious to not when confronted by such an infinite pink face), it simply feels, effectively, arty.
Even the modest health club appears to have been stocked with design in thoughts; as an alternative of hulking nice plastic machines there’s a glossy picket treadmill, static bike and water rower; a fantastically tiled sauna and steam room; and a bowl of inexperienced apples so obscenely good I’m scared to take one in case they turn into an set up.
The artwork theme continues upstairs, assuming you respect the sight of yourselves within the nude – relatively than a toilet, our Deluxe room boasts a big bathe panelled in smoky mirrored glass which startles me on first use. (Fortunately, for us anyway, the john is extra discreet). Although not big, the room has excessive ceilings and generously sized home windows trying onto the busy pedestrianised Mariahilfer Strasse, providing glorious gawping alternatives, however letting in comparatively little noise after the outlets shut for the night.
Certainly, helped by the elegant cocktails at Chez Bernard bar on the seventh ground, I loved the trippiest sequence of goals throughout our keep – effectively, it was both the alcohol or the ghosts that hang-out the tapestry-panelled partitions in charge. With a historical past courting again to the seventeenth century, this constructing was briefly dwelling to Johann Strauss, housed the Golden Cross Inn and French navy in the course of the Allied occupation, and – in a earlier incarnation because the Resort Kummer – was the setting for John Irving’s 1981 novel, The Resort New Hampshire.
Searching from the roof terrace, which is open as a bar in hotter months, and as a self-service hangout for the remainder of the yr, town’s historical past is tough to keep away from. Considered one of Vienna’s 4 Brutalist-leaning concrete flak towers is lower than a five-minute stroll away. Too large to securely demolish, it now homes the Haus des Meeres, with aquarium tanks and modest zoo enclosures (suppose uncommon Bavarian pine voles relatively than lions) set over 11 tales, plus a bonus assortment of wartime memorabilia, albeit with captions in German.
With no offence meant to the magnificently ugly Australian lungfish, most of our different outings from the lodge are extra aesthetically pleasing – we tick off the hovering Gothic arches of the Stephanskirche, and each the Leopold and Albertina galleries. The latter’s Schieles and Klimts show extra to my style than the glittering, however largely empty, state rooms of the Hofburg, former residence of the royal Habsburgs dynasty – although maybe my distaste is because of reminiscences of A-level historical past their identify stirs up.
Most significantly – in addition to gazing open-mouthed on the structure of a capital that misplaced a fifth of its buildings to battle bombs – we find time for edible artwork within the type of the viennoiserie-crafting practised within the metropolis’s grand cafés. Mr Smith is sceptical concerning the exactly layered truffles, objecting that something that appears so good is bound to be model over substance. However, in the end, he finds himself received over by the Dobos torte, a Hungarian confection with stripes of sponge and chocolate buttercream, glazed with caramel, on the celebrated Demel salon, whereas I lose my coronary heart to Café Landtmann’s chestnut-and-cherry torte.
Such locations could really feel like vacationer traps, however boast their justifiable share of locals on purchasing breaks, poring over that day’s Der Normal newspapers from the mahogany racks by the door. They’re additionally helpful locations for a late dinner on a wet Sunday night after a exhibiting of iconic Vienna-set film The Third Man on the Burg Kino, one of many oldest cinemas nonetheless in operation, nonetheless with deliciously low velvet seats to show it.
In fact, we then must journey the Ferris wheel the movie made well-known, but even the view from the highest can’t beat that from the mid-century Rondell Café am Cobenzl; perched in vineyards excessive above town, it serves hearty meals with an all-Austrian wine record. It was just lately refurbished by the Motto group, and breads and pastries come from the bakery under the lodge, which produces a robust contender for the most effective French-style croissants on the town alongside kipferl, the chunkier native take.
Resort Motto friends, rejoice – each characteristic on the breakfast menu again at Chez Bernard (e book forward, significantly at weekends, because the views and meals make this a sizzling venue for locals in addition to friends), however you’ll observe your candy tooth again for lunch and dinner too, to see the loveliest Viennese artwork of all – for what mere Klimt or Monet may reside as much as the great thing about a plump plum dumpling or hefty slice of speculoos cake?
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Felicity Cloake will journey an awfully good distance for meal. A contract journalist and award-winning meals author and columnist for The Guardian and the New Statesman – in addition to the creator of 4 recipe books – her concept of vacation bliss is being cooked for – ideally whereas she relaxes with an ice-cold martini and a choice of deliciously salty snacks. Felicity additionally enjoys working up an urge for food for dinner within the nice outdoor, each on two legs or two wheels, and sometimes checks in with an equally grasping canine in tow.
