Madai

Review

Concierge!

Photo: Heribert Corn The Urbanauts were and are the greatest hotel project of the past ten years in Vienna: in 2011, three architects from Kohlmayr Lutter Knapp began converting vacant alleyway pubs around Sankt-Elisabeth-Platz in the fourth district into hotel rooms, with a pinch of re-use aesthetics and integrated into the neighborhood infrastructure, i.e. with a café in the coffee house and wellness area in the hamam around the corner. It started with one room "Die Schneiderin", soon there were five, and last year the Urbanauts merged with Grätzl Betriebs GmbH, a group of hoteliers with a similar concept. There are now 16 rooms and suites on Wieden, at Meidlinger Markt and around Karmelitermarkt, and since December there has also been a restaurant. Within sight of the Karmelitermarkt, but not on the Karmelitermarkt (which unfortunately has to be seen as a plus) in a former lampshade store, whose old stock was used in the same way, as were the fabulously beautiful planed table, an old safe and an apothecary's shelf, which were left to the Grätzel-Urbanauts by the previous owner.
Let's put it this way: you can't really tell from looking at the café called Zur Rezeption that it is also the reception and breakfast venue for the seven rooms in the alleyways around it, which is why there is absolutely no inhibition threshold for passers-by, Grätzel residents or other non-hotel guests to enter. Lots of glass, lots of cushions, a cozy, neat and very intimate flair - it literally draws you in.
Just like the atmosphere, the Urbanauts also have a home-from-home, good-old-fashioned feel to the menu: there's Russian egg, Hawaiian toast, semolina dumpling soup, cabbage dumplings, piled-up pyre, rice casserole with raspberry juice (where else can you get rice casserole with raspberry juice?!?) and Buchteln, but only on Thursdays. The semolina dumpling soup was great (€ 4.20), the Russian egg with mayonnaise, salmon caviar and lumpfish roe was perhaps a little too classic, so perhaps a little update wouldn't hurt (€ 5.90). Thanks to plenty of roasted bacon, great potatoes and two sandwiches, the Vogerlsalat is also quite substantial, and the chef has the fine, nutty sunflower seed oil brought over from his native Carinthia (€ 5.90). Incidentally, just like the "Faustnudeln" (fist noodles), so named because it describes their size very well, the version with roast pork and smoked meat is terrific (€ 13.90). It's clear that the breakfast here is a real treat, especially with the Schanigarten. To sum up: a hotel café can also look like this - cosy, open, reasonably priced and with a bit of irony. And with rice casserole. To the reception, 2nd, Große Sperlg. 6 Tel. 01/890 58 56 Sat-Thu 9am-6pm, Wed-Fri 9am-2pm

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