Hotel Daniel Vienna

Plenty of hotels in Vienna have neat rows of luxury sedans conspicuously displayed at their entrances. We’d venture that Hotel Daniel is the only one with an aluminum trailer parked in the front yard — more precisely a 1952 Airstream, retrofitted by a shipwright to look like something out of a travel-themed issue of Dwell. In fact transportation is a theme that’s integral to the hotel’s aesthetic, from the Erwin Wurm sailboat sculpture with its twisted hull hanging off the edge of the roof to the Vespas and vintage cruiser bikes waiting for guests to take a ride. Short on pomp, long on style, Daniel is evidence that Vienna’s hotels just might be growing young again.

“Pared-down” is perhaps the best way to describe the guest rooms, though the designers have stopped well short of whittling away all their character. There’s a subtle industrial aspect to the spaces, with workshop-like hanging light fixtures, the occasional patch of exposed concrete and a decided lack of clutter. Some rooms come with hammocks for snoozing by the window, others with plate-glass walls for taking in the views, and all of them are full of sunlight. (That Airstream trailer, by the way, is a habitable guest room as well, and not an unstylish or uncomfortable one either.)

Whereas the accommodations are all about minimizing fuss and focusing on the essentials, they take some welcome liberties in the bakery. It’s not every bakery, after all, that has a section of the menu dedicated to various cuts of steak, or mixed drinks, or caffeinated beverage options that range from Turkish coffee to chai with honey from the apiary on the roof. And yes, the baked goods too are delicious, the gateaux every bit as rich in the absence of an officious, genuflecting waiter.