Hotel Review: Schwarzer Adler, Kitzbuhel, Austria

This boutique, traditional hotel is rated at four stars but is clearly ripe for an upgrade. How many four star hotels have a Michelin starred restaurant, let alone a magnificent new spa complex hollowed out of the basement?

Choose the recently opened deluxe rooms and you are also very much in five star territory with 32 square metres, wooden flooring and paneling and a minimalist contemporary bathroom with rainfall shower, as well as a balcony for many of these rooms.

WiFi option

It is hard to fault this hotel. It would be nice to have free WiFi in the bedrooms and not just the spacious lobby and bar area. But you do have a free LAN cable connection anyway.

Take the half-board option. The cozy series of dining rooms on the ground floor are a key feature of this hotel. The food is a superb twist on modern Austrian cuisine.

Six course dinners are the norm but with relatively small courses and a medley of flavors and tastes well put together. The choice of Austrian wines by the glass is also highly recommended.

If you want to try Chef Stefan Hofer’s Michelin one-starred Neuwirt restaurant then you can claim a rebate from the half-board, that is more bistro perhaps than fine dining. Neuwirt offers micro-sized portions of lovingly crafted dishes for devotees of this particular modern passion.

On to the Black Spa, a massive space carved from beneath the hotel. The lower of the two levels is a multi-roomed sauna with tiled steam rooms and naturally a chance to step outside into the snow.

Indoor pool

Upstairs is an indoor swimming pool where a carefully placed corner window has a view right up to the top of the first lift station. There is also a Jacuzzi, perhaps a tad small with only six places.

You can book massages and treatments in adjacent rooms. And take the lift to the rooftop and there is a year-round swimming pool.

This is also a hotel with a very strong service culture. Guests are remembered by name. Service is polite and efficient but never intrusive.

Kitzbuhel has several fine centrally located hotels like this one but the newness of the refurbishment is surely a final plus for readers of ArabianMoney.