Excelsior Hotel Ernst

Lobby and Winter Garden
Welcome to the Excelsior Hotel Ernst, Cologne’s Grand Hotel next to the Cathedral.

Lobby and Winter Garden of the Excelsior Hotel Ernst are meeting points for tourists and the people of Cologne.

Despite their central location, the gallery of the lobby and the Winter Garden provide a refuge from the bustling city. The Piano Bar serves coffee and tea specialties.

The breathtaking interior design and the decorated glass roof make the Winter Garden the perfect place for events. Therefore it can be booked individually.

Standard-Rooms
The Excelsior Hotel Ernst has 42 standard rooms. The single rooms are between 15 m² and 18 m² in size, double rooms are 26 m² to 30 m² in size. All standard rooms have traditional interior furnishing overlooking the calm patio or the Marzellenstrasse, in the hotel's west wing.

Superior-Room
The Excelsior Hotel Ernst has 13 doublerooms superior. The double rooms are between 23 m² and 25 m² large.

All superior rooms have traditional interior furnishing overlooking the calm patio or the Marzellenstrasse in the hotel's west wing, or the Domprobst-Ketzer-Strasse.

Deluxe-Room
The Excelsior Hotel Ernst has 53 deluxe rooms. The single rooms are between 18 m² and 25 m² in size, double rooms are 34 m² to 42 m² in size. The deluxe rooms are furnished with marble or natural stone baths. You can choose between queen or twin beds.

Non-smoking rooms are available in our Hanse wing.

Junior Suites
The Excelsior Hotel Ernst has 15 junior suites. The junior suites are 32 m² to 43 m² in size and partially, you have a view on the Cologne Cathedral.

All junior suites are furnished with big marble or natural stone baths and have separate living and sleeping areas.

Non-smoking rooms are available in our Hanse wing.

Suites
The Excelsior Hotel Ernst has 9 traditional suites. The suites are 45 m² to 48 m² in size and partially, you have a view on the Cologne Cathedral. All suites are furnished with big marble or natural stone baths and have separate living and sleeping areas.

Some of our suites with view on the Cathedral are furnished with original Louis XV antiques.

Business Suites
The Excelsior Hotel Ernst has 2 business suites. In the business suites, which measure 68 m², you will find a separate living and conference area, as well as a separate bedroom. The conference tables have six laptop connectors each, as well as one big plasma screen which can be used for presentations.

The business suites can be found in our renovated Hanse wing.

Executive Suites
The Excelsior Hotel Ernst has 6 executive suites. In the executive suites, you will have 56 m² to 90 m² at your disposal, separated into a living and a sleeping area. All executive suites have a big marble bath and partially a view on Cologne Cathedral.

Non-smoking rooms will also be available in our Hanse wing.

Excelsior Suites
Two of our extremely beautiful suites with view of the Cathedral are named after the hotel. In the excelsior suites you have 64m² or 84 m² at your disposal and in addition, you can add more bedrooms. The two suites are furnished with big marble baths and have separate living and sleeping areas.

Conferences
The Excelsior Hotel Ernst offers 13 different function rooms which you can exclusively book. All rooms provide:

• Your personal conference butler
• natural daylight
• state-of-the-art communication and presentation technology as well as air conditioning

Business Center & Call Center
Our guests have free-of-charge 24 hour access to our Business Center.

It is equipped with two PCs, dvd-player, colour printer, fax, scanner and a dsl internet access for your laptop.

Our call center is glad to send your faxes, receive calls or messages and copy your documents.

Our morning wake-up call also provides a weather forecast for the day.

Celebrations
The Excelsior Hotel Ernst offers excellent premises which you can book individually for all your small and big celebrations.

We also offer a wide range of culinary highlights at our restaurants Hanse Stube and taku.

Use the opportunity to receive individual advice from our events office.

Fitness
On the sixth floor, you will find our health and sauna area which is exclusively for our guests. Usage is free of charge and opening hours are: 7am to 10pm.

If you wish, our concierge will book a session with a personal trainer for you.

Equipment of the health and sauna area:

• 2 step machines
• 1 cross trainers
• 2 treadmills
• 2 multifunctioning strength training machines
• steam bath
• sauna
• rain shower, hail shower, refreshing shower
• rest room
• changing rooms for ladies and gentlemen
• fruit and sparkling water
• bath robes and towels

Concierges
All three concierges of the Excelsior Hotel Ernst are members of the prestigious association Goldene Schlüssel and the Union Internationale des Concierges d’Hôtels. They coordinate first and second porters and anticipate all your wishes.

Our concierges will organise:

• visits of sights and events
• luggage service, parking service, car wash
• limousine service
• personal shopping advisor
• restaurant reservations
• massages, beauty treatments, sport lessons
• VIP airport shuttle service in Cologne/Bonn
• dispatch of packages, documents, and valuables
• etc.

Hanse Stube
Hanse Stube is well-known for its friendly atmosphere in Cologne.

Since decades the people from Cologne and their international guests have been enjoying innovative French cuisine combined with regional influence. Due to this excellent cuisine Hanse Stube was several times awarded a prize and has become famous in Germany.

Service traditions are especially maintained at Hanse Stube. The maître d`Hotel personally fillets or carves many courses at the guest’s table.

Our sommeliere will help you to make the right choice regarding the versatile wines offered in the wine cellar of Excelsior Hotel Ernst.

While designing the interior, Count Pilati underlined the restaurant’s tasteful character with mahogany panelling and inviting niche tables. The two side rooms, Spiegelsalon and Fischsalon, offer privacy for small banquets.

In summer you can lunch or dine at our Mediterranean patio.

"taku"
“taku“ is Japanese and means guesthouse. The house of Asian delights at Cathedral square is famous for its fine Asian cuisine and timeless elegance.

The taku team prepares sophisticated courses of the Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Malaysian cuisine. Several times it was awarded a prize for its authentic and creative courses.

One of taku’s specialties is the large offer of wine and sake. The motivated staff combines the exquisite sake with your menu or recommends matching wines.

Service at taku is unobtrusively attentive. On demand, you will be comprehensively informed about exotic meals and beverages.

You can book the whole restaurant for private and business purposes.

wine@taku
Several times a year an interesting vinyard is invited to be partner for the wine@taku evening.

The vintner and chef Nicolas von Auersperg create a menu with matching wines.

Wine lovers and laymen of Asian cuisine experience the result of this cooperation. You will surely experience new flavours.

Wine@taku is informally celebrated in the kitchen. This enables you to move freely in the restaurant and discuss your questions with the experts or taste the culinary delights.

Piano-Bar
The Piano Bar at the Excelsior Hotel Ernst is an insiders’ tip among Cologne’s people.

You can enjoy cocktails, champagne or coffee in our bar which is located only a few metres from the Cathedral but not affected from city rush.

During the day, we offer coffee and tea specialties as well as patisserie and cakes. Tea master gold Andrea Helbig explains the aroma of spring and autumn harvest while serving the tea.

In the evening, bar manager Luis de Gouveia and his team mix traditional or unique cocktails while you listen to the sound of the piano. The menu offers cooked meals until midnight.

The mahogany panelled bar, designed by Count Pilati, provides the right atmosphere to try the wide range of cigars.

Service in the Piano-Bar:

Bar manager Luis de Gouveia and his team meticulously prepare every single cocktail for their guests. The team attaches much importance to ingredients and presentation of all beverages from Latte Macchiato to champagne. Bartender of the year 2004, Luis de Gouveia, is famous for his cocktail creations.

Tea master Andrea Helbig is in charge of the tea selection for the Excelsior Hotel Ernst. Each tea is expertly brewed so that the aromas can develop freely.

History
In 1863, Carl Ernst, "Royal Restorer of the central station", built the Hotel Ernst.

In 1871, after as few as eight years, he sold the Hotel Ernst to Friedrich Kracht.

Friedrich Kracht moved from Belgium to Cologne to manage the hotel but he died four years later. His wife and his son Carl took over the management of the house.

It did not take long to integrate the Krachts in the society of Cologne. In 1884, the people of Cologne crowned Carl Kracht Prince Carnival. In these days, the Grand Hotel was already the first choice of prominent guests like the German Emperor William I who observed the completion of Cologne Cathedral from his room in the Hotel Ernst.

In 1889, Carl Kracht went to Zurich where he married Emma Pauline Baur. The Swiss hotelier family Baur possessed both the well-known Baur au Lac and Savoy Baur en Ville in Zurich.

In 1890, one year after his wedding, his mother handed the Hotel Ernst over to him and his sister Hermine Brinkhaus. The siblings founded a limited company but one year later Hermine Brinkhaus withdrew from her position.

Carl Kracht was now the only proprietor of Cologne’s Grand Hotel next to the Cathedral.

He and his family lived in Zurich where he managed the Baur au Lac. In 1905, he appointed Friedrich Reime director of the Hotel Ernst who continued to manage the hotel.

Between 1908 and 1910 the hotel was rapidly pulled down and reopened as five-star Grand Hotel Excelsior Hotel Ernst.

Already in those days, the Excelsior Hotel Ernst was able to offer its guests every possible luxury.

In an era in which running water was the exception, 100 out of 250 rooms were equipped with a bathroom.

In 1918, after the end of the war, the hotel became the headquarter of the British. During this time the hotel was closed. After the troops had left in 1926, the Excelsior Hotel Ernst was renovated for the second time.

On December the 31st, the Excelsior Hotel Ernst celebrated again its reopening.

During World War II, the hotel was mainly closed. After the war, the Krachts tried to reconstruct the building as soon as possible.

The family never stopped to preserve the Grand Hotel of Cologne. In 1986, the hotel was extended by the circular building, Marzellenstrasse/Domprobst Ketzer Strasse. The famous interior designer Count Pilati designed the new rooms, bathrooms and all public areas.

In 2000, an exclusive health and spa area for guests was established. In 2001, the Asian restaurant taku and, a little later, the modern Business Center were opened.

In 2007, the last renovation took place. 23 new deluxe double rooms, 5 junior suites and 7 executive suites were created in the Hanse wing, costing seven million euros.