Top-echelon, “name-brand” hotels exemplify urbane prestige: Imperial, Sacher, Bristol, SAS Palais, Das Trieste, and ultra-deluxe Palais Coburg Residenz. But there’s no lack of less-pricey alternatives. The tourist-office website (www.vienna.info) compiles 350 accommodations. Many can be booked online at Gemut.com.

Hotel Am Stephansplatz
Renovated top-to-bottom in 2005, unbeatable location a few steps from the cathedral;  56 two-part bay-windowed rooms with oak-veneer furniture, dark acacia parquet flooring, flat-panel TV, stoneware-tiled bathrooms with radiant heat; three nonsmoking floors. Bright, amiable breakfast room/bar overlooks St. Stephen’s.  
Stephansplatz 9, 1010 Wien, tel. +43/01/534/050, fax 534/05, office@hotelamstephansplatz.at; www.hotelamstephansplatz.at, doubles from €185. 

Pension Aviano
Long recommended by Gemütlichkeit, the Aviano’s central location is unbeatable: three short blocks from the Staatsoper, closer still to the Albertina. Turn a Kärtnerstrasse corner at Marco d’Avianogasse to enter a turreted patrician structure, built in imposing late-19th-century Gründerzeit style, housing a four-star pension with 17 guestrooms at third- and fourth-floor levels (elevator accessed). Each is brightened by a chandelier, harmonizing with traditionally classical-type furnishings. Double-paned windows and thick burgundy-colored draperies reduce shopping-street noises to a dim hum. Bathrooms, though a tad small, provide toiletries and a hairdryer. TV, telephone, minibar and PC connection are bedroom standards. Guests start their mornings with buffet selections in a cheerful window-walled breakfast room.
Marco-D’Aviano-Gasse 1, 1010 Wien, tel. +43/01/512 83 30, fax 51283 30- 6, aviano@secrethomes.at, www.secrethomes.at, doubles €115-149

Opera Suites
Don’t be put off by the nondescript stairs leading one flight up to the reception desk. You’ll be on Vienna’s swankiest shopping street, with close-up views of the Staatsoper’s imposing bulk. All six guestrooms are clean, reasonably sizeable, decently furnished, with flat-screen wall-mounted TV as well as a kitchenette, plus terry-cloth robes in the small bathroom.
Kärtner Strasse 47, 1010 Wien, tel. +43/01/512/9310, fax 523/96/4317, opera@netland.at; www.opera-suites-vienna.com, doubles €125-180.

Levante Parliament
Opened last May in a 1908 Bauhaus edifice, this artsy, cutting-edge-modern 70-room beauty stands close to Vienna’s Rathaus and neoclassical Reichsrat Parliament. Guestroom comforts, fixtures, and accessories—with glass partitions and avant-garde lighting fixtures—are downright spectacular, epitomizing sleek, minimalist décor. Surreal glass sculptures created by Bulgaria’s Ioan Nemtoi accentuate public areas. Fitness facilities are topnotch; same for “wellness” amenities (sauna, solarium, massage).        
Auerspergstrasse 9, 1080 Wien, tel. +43/01/228/280, fax 228/2828, parliament@thelevante.com; www.thelevante.com, doubles are €275.    

Hollmann Beletage
You’ll feel right at home in this four-star, 16-room designer hotel, a few squeezed-together blocks between St. Stephen’s and Donaukanal embankments. Guests socialize in the lounge (graphic-art blowups affixed to wall and ceiling), invitingly stocked with a piano and shelves of books. Bedrooms allow generous space for low-slung, contemporary furnishings and totally modern bathrooms. The Heilingkreuzerdorf courtyard contains an outdoor dining salon. Robert Hollmann, a stage actor and chef, does the hosting and cooking.
Köllnerhofgasse 6, 1010 Wien, tel. +43/01/961/1960, fax 961/1960/33, hotel@hollmann-beletage,at; www.hollman-beletage.at, doubles from €140. 

Hotel Altstadt
Gemütlichkeit’s 1994 “Hotel of the Year” is better than ever. Though a bit removed from the center, Otto Wiesenthal’s upscale, Art Nouveau-style pension is behind the Neue Rathaus in a neighborhood of interesting shops and restaurants. Leading Italian architect, Matteo Thun recently masterminded the construction of eight new rooms and a suite giving the hotel a total of 28 rooms and 14 suites.
Kirchengasse 41, 1070 Wien, +43/01/522 66 66, fax 523 49 01, hotel@altstadt.at, www.altstadt.at, double from €139 

Bergwirt
If you’d prefer to overnight in an outlying district rather than Innere Stadt Vienna, head southwest to the Heitzing neighborhood, best-known as Schloss Schönbrunn’s locale. Monika Grauer and Anna Rischer run this circa-1911, yellow-with-white trim Jugendstil property, uphill from the U-bahn station. Forty-nine lace-curtained bedrooms are spare but comfortable. Pine wainscotting and an old-fashioned porcelain-tile stove make the Gaststube cozy. The hotel’s beer garden, at adjacent Montecuccoliplatz, gets zesty in summertime. (A few doors down Maxingstrasse, at #18, a plaque tells us that Johann Strauss composed 1874’s Die Fledermaus while residing there).   
Maxingstrasse 6, 1130 Wien, tel. +43/01/877/3413, fax 877/3413/13, hotel.bergwirt@chello.at; www.hotelbergwirt.at, where doubles are €98.

Vienna Restaurants

Zum Weissen Rauchfangkehrer
Prior to torte-making renown, Franz Sacher began his culinary career here, in the former chimney-sweepers’ guild house. Now Iris and Alexander Stauder run this positively sensational exemplar of a traditional, quality-caliber Viennese restaurant. Two of four tastefully decorated dining rooms are nonsmoking. Cooked-to-perfection meals are in the €23-29 range.   
Weihburggasse 4, 1010 Wien, tel. +43/01/512/3471, rauchfangkehrer@utanet.at; www.weisser-rauchfangkehrer.at.

Griechenbeisl
Enjoying food and drink in a Beisl (old-time Gastätte; familiar local cuisine) clinches anyone’s truly Viennese experience. This is the oldest, dating from 1447, its backside hacked into a section of the 13th-century city walls, its foundations of Roman origin. Six dining rooms (Mark Twain Zimmer among them) ooze Alt-Wiener ambience. Copious main courses: meat (€14.60-19.90), fish (€17.20-18.80). One wishes the food matched the surroundings.
Fleischmarkt 11, 1010 Wien, tel. +43/01/533/1977, fax 533/1977/12, office@griechenbeisl.at; www.griechenbeisl.at.

Figlmüller
Since 1905, the city’s veritable Wiener Schnitzel epicenter. Bare tables, wooden benches, usually jam-packed—but waiters wear tuxedos and the colossal breaded-veal cutlets are the size of catchers’ mitts (€9.50-13.50, depending upon side-dish preference).
Wollzeile 5, 1010 Wien, tel. +43/01/512/1760, fax 512/1760/20, www.figlmueller.at.

Plachutta
Tafelspitz (boiled beef with fried potatoes and applesauce or horseradish sauce, €16.50-21) rivals Wiener Schnitzel as the city’s iconic dish. Here, it comes in a pan of clear beef-and-vegetable soup, in classy surroundings (dark woodwork, shiny brass, low lighting) featuring window-nook tables and a buzzing bar scene. Excellent wine list.
Wollzeile 38, 1010 Wien, tel. +43/01/512/1577, fax 512/1577/20, wollzeile@plachutta.at; www.plachutta.at 

Weibel’s Wirsthaus
Open for lunch and dinner (until midnight) at street level and upstairs in one of Vienna’s most venerable buildings, aptly gemütlich with dark woodwork and kitschy knickknacks. Menu offerings overseen by Hans Weibel include such Austro-Hungarian stalwarts as fried chicken (€14.50), rumpsteak (€19.20) and veal goulasch (€14.30). Weather permitting, waitstaff brings meals out to the 30-seat Schanigarten.
Kumpfgasse 2, 1010 Wien, tel.& fax  +43/01/513-3110, www.weibel.at.  

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