Life & Leisure

Vienna’s Sacher Hotel revives vintage dining experience to draw in guests

By Wanda Rudich

Vienna, May 29 (efe-epa).- The Sacher Hotel in Vienna in the absence of guests due to the pandemic has revived the 19th-century tradition of offering diners “chambres separées”, private dining areas.

With borders still closed and barely any flights, tourists have become a rare sighting in Austria, but after hotels were given the green light to reopen on Friday they are turning to innovative models to keep business afloat.

Many compete with special offers to attract customers and this is how the Sacher, located in the heart of Vienna behind the Opera House, decided to restore the tradition of dining with discretion, one of the keys to its success since launching in 1876.

The private spaces were 12 chambers of the Sacher restaurant “for those who wanted to meet, talk and eat well” protected from prying eyes, manager Matthias Winkler tells Efe.

They would have been ideal now given the strict hygiene and social distancing measures to prevent contagion, but they disappeared from the luxury hotel years ago.

So the venue turned to its empty rooms to resurrect the 2020 version of the intimate dining experience.

Each hotel room has been transformed into an exclusive dining room in an elegant setting with diners enjoying a personal butler.

“It is one of the ideas we are trying to test and see how we can improve business and billing with them, and differentiate ourselves in the market”, Winkler adds.

The soft launch took place on Tuesday and the manager was delighted with the response.

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