Checking in at Eriro, a Boutique Escape in the Austrian Alps
A retreat in the mountains.
To slow down at Eriro, first you have to climb up. The former cottage and inn sit at the foot of the Zugspitze mountain and above the village of Ehrwald, at an elevation of 1,550 metres (about 5,085 feet). It’s accessible only by cable car, making check-in just challenging enough and high enough to feel disconnected from the world below, which at Eriro is exactly the point.
It’s now been bought and reimagined by three couples, six childhood friends who have used Eriro’s somewhat remote location to encourage guests to switch off and slow down. The group worked with South Tyrolean architect Martin Gruber on Eriro’s spruce-wood structure whilst overseeing the interiors themselves to put a contemporary spin on traditional alpine design. Corridors lined with natural clay and bobbled wool lead guests to just nine suites, which calm and soothe with neutral shades and layers of tactile materials. Unpolished wood flooring and more natural clay, this time applied with a brushstroke finish in the bathrooms, is warmed up with handwoven wool wall hangings, copper lampshades, and brass highlights, which add a subtle touch of shine to the pared-back design. “Living here can be challenging. It can push you out of your comfort zone—the weather changes quickly—and so these contrasts in textures reflect that,” says the general manager, Henning Schaub. Furnishings are bespoke: note Eriro’s 84 handmade doors and the milking-stool-inspired chairs that sit at the desks. The most unusual pieces are the log baths in seven of the nine rooms, carved from a single piece of wood to truly put you inside nature.
Traditional board games and old-fashioned record players replace modern televisions: the big screens here are the floor-to-ceiling windows. Even the WiFi is hidden. As is your phone, if you want it to be: each room comes with a small box in the hope that guests might put their phone away and switch it off. “We are always in a rush, we are always stressed, so this is just about taking a moment, if you want to. We are just here to encourage,” Schaub says.
In the restaurant, the owners tapped German chef David Franken, who has brought experience from some of Europe’s most notable city centre restaurants to this remote pocket of South Tyrol. At Eriro, Franken has created a strictly sustainable kitchen stocked with produce that has been hand grown and harvested without using electricity and purchased from small-scale producers within a 50-kilometre radius. Even the utensils are sourced locally. “Everyone told me this kind of concept is not possible here because of the very cold winters,” Franken says, “but we’ve even created our own vegetable garden just 40 kilometres away.” There are three somewhat essential exceptions—coffee, tea, and alcohol—but anything else that isn’t locally made is homemade, from the sourdough bread and charcuterie to even the salt, which is flavoured using leftovers from whatever the kitchen has been cooking. Dishes are, unsurprisingly, inspired by Tyrol and highly seasonal: earthy winter salads of beetroot and radicchio alongside fire-cooked meats, as well as more oddball it-shouldn’t-work-but-it-does combinations such as pine ice cream topped with pickled onion granite, an example of Franken’s culinary imagination.
Guests are further encouraged to switch off from technology with wood carving and pottery classes in the creativity room. Outside, there’s the option to immerse yourself in South Tyrol through hikes, meditation, mountain biking, and more, or through the 16th-century art of yodelling. Or to stay cocooned within Eriro’s quiet stillness, there is the Eriro spa. Guests can while away whole afternoons dipping in and out of the onsen pool, meditation pool, and Finnish and herbal saunas, perhaps after a yoga session with an alpine view. To further enhance well-being, Eriro works with a local massage therapist, who, in keeping with the retreat’s take-time philosophy, offers an ear rather than a menu. Guests say what is troubling them, and the appropriate mountain herbs, oils, and massage are paired with their ailment, whether stress or fatigue or physical. “It’s the things grandmas would know, such as what herb to collect and how to use it, whether in a tea or an essence,” Schaub says. “Like everything here, it pays tribute to our origins.”
Photographs by Alex Moling.
