July 5, 2007

Europe | Austria | Vienna

A New Taste of Vienna

By Nicole Cotroneo

How the hottest hotel in town came to resemble a postmodern cake.

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What do you get when a top Vienna catering company opens a luxury hotel? Forty-three rooms shaped like slices of sacher torte, a menu that runs from sushi to schnitzel, and a rooftop pavilion called the “culinary temple” for private dining. Such delectable features belong to Do & Co — the first hotel by the eponymous event and airline caterer that feeds VIPs at the Olympic Games and at the Emirates Lounge at JFK. The Austrian capital’s latest design hotel, Do & Co embodies the secret every good caterer knows: you eat with your eyes first. The hotel occupies the stunning and controversial Haas Haus — a postmodern structure that Pritzker Prize-winning architect Hans Hollein erected smack-dab in Vienna’s historic center. Sheathed in mirrored glass, the building affords guests up-close views of St. Stephen’s Cathedral and its colorful, zigzag-patterned tile roof. But, of course, there’s yet more architecture to be ogled in this city. The Vienna Art Tour, led by former director of the U.S. Armed Forces’ art history tours — takes in the Schonbrunn Palace and the Hofburg Imperial Palace, July 9-15.