The Amauris Vienna – two MICHELIN Keys behind a banker's façade

The Amauris Vienna occupies a regal corner building on the Kärntner Ring, a stretch of the Ringstrasse where appearances have always mattered. The MICHELIN Guide notes that its scrubbed white facade, cheerful red roof and perfectly symmetrical rows of windows look more than a little like a Wes Anderson production, an impeccable exterior for an address just around the corner from the opera. Behind that front once stood a bank, then a design hotel called The Ring; in spring 2023, after a renovation that took nearly two years, it reopened as The Amauris, a 62-room boutique hotel and member of Relais & Châteaux. The MICHELIN Guide gives it Two Keys, and the refined interiors, it says, live up to the exterior impression. Its restaurant, Glasswing, has since added its own distinction: one MICHELIN Star for chef Alexandru Simon, whose cooking folds Viennese heritage into a French-rooted tasting menu.

01The house

The building's bearing comes from its past lives: the structure once housed a local bank before becoming The Ring Hotel, and only in 2023 did it emerge, reworked, as The Amauris. The MICHELIN Guide singles out the corner building's facade, red roof and symmetrical windows as a presence suited to a city where appearances matter, especially this close to the State Opera on the busy Ringstrasse.

The two-year renovation handed the interiors to Croatian designer Nikola Arambašić, whose approach the hotel describes as a clear design language built on fine materials, combining Viennese lifestyle with international influences to produce something both timeless and modern. Stucco ceilings, marble, fine woods and sculptural design pieces sit alongside works from the owning family's private art collection throughout the public rooms.

The hotel's name comes from Amauris, a genus of butterfly prized for its elegance; the idea, as the house puts it, is a poetic image of arrival and departure, of guests who stay, enjoy themselves, and move on.

02Rooms and suites

There are 62 rooms and suites, including 17 suites, spread across four room categories, from Classic to Grand Deluxe, and six suite types: Junior, Executive, Maisonette, Grand Maisonette, Loft and the Opera Suite. The smallest, the Classic Single Room, runs to 20 square metres with a queen-size bed and courtyard view, while the largest, the Opera Suite, spans 120 square metres and can sleep up to 14 people.

Insider tip

Nearest stop: Karlsplatz (U1, U2, U4) and trams 1, 2, 62, 71, D right outside the door.

Every room follows the same curatorial idea: a book, a Viennese work of art, an object from nature, a board game and a chosen design piece, described on the house's own terms as a tribute to culture, aesthetics and the art of living well.

The spa area features a sauna, steam bath, and an indoor pool with a retractable glass roof opening into the courtyard, a feature guests reach from the upper floors, where several rooms and the Opera Suite's balcony look directly onto the historic Ringstrasse and, from the hotel's crown room, the State Opera itself.

03Where to eat

Glasswing, the hotel's restaurant, opened with the building in 2023 under executive chef Alexandru Simon, who grew up on farms in Romania before working his way through kitchens across Austria. His cooking blends regional produce, from king crab and scallops to mushrooms foraged in Austrian forests, with French technique, built around a changing seven-course tasting menu alongside a constant roster of dishes such as Austrian caviar and Danube lamb.

That cooking earned Glasswing its first MICHELIN Star, a distinction the MICHELIN Guide says recognises the restaurant's outstanding culinary quality and distinctive creative approach; the award followed close collaboration between the kitchen, general manager Mike Faber and restaurant manager and sommelier Max Populorum. Falstaff has separately scored the table 97 points.

Through the year, Glasswing also hosts a Wine & Dine series pairing its menus with producers such as Château La Conseillante of Pomerol and Champagne house Dhondt-Grellet, bringing winemakers to the table alongside the kitchen.

04The bar

Glasswing Bar & Bistro occupies the same ground floor as the restaurant, built for looser evenings: pickled and fermented Austrian classics, Mediterranean-leaning small plates and homemade brioches served through the day. On Thursday and Saturday nights from 8.30pm, live vocalists perform, and on Fridays from the same hour the bar turns into a Friday Soirée, with a rotating line-up of DJs and the house's signature cocktails.

05Spa and wellbeing

The Amauris Spa is built around a Finnish sauna and a steam bath with aromatherapy, an ice fountain for the plunge afterwards, and a heated indoor relaxation pool set into the hotel's courtyard beneath a glass roof that opens to the sky. The pool runs with massage jets and a counter-current system for swimming against resistance, while a separate treatment room and a fitness room equipped with Technogym machines, open around the clock, round out the offer.

The spa is reserved for hotel guests, with the pool open from 8am to 10pm and the sauna and steam bath from 3pm to 10pm.

06The neighbourhood

The address could hardly be more central: Kärntner Ring 8 sits on the Ringstrasse itself, between the Vienna State Opera and the Musikverein concert hall, with the Albertina and Karlsplatz within walking distance. The Karlsplatz U-Bahn station, served by lines U1, U2 and U4, along with trams 1, 2, 62, 71 and D, is at the door, putting the Hofburg, the museum quarter and the First District's shopping streets within easy reach without a car.

07Making the most of a stay

Time a visit around one of Glasswing's Wine & Dine evenings, or a Friday Soirée at the bar, to see the hotel's social side; the house also marks the festive season with a winter terrace and tailored Christmas celebrations as the nearby markets fill the Ringstrasse with light. Either way, a room facing the boulevard, or better still the Opera Suite's balcony, puts the trams, the opera crowds and the whole theatre of the Ring directly below the window.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.