Dispatch from the Past: Vienna Coffee Houses
Get a caffeine fix at one of Sigmund Freud's favorite Old World cafés, and linger over apfelstrudel at the haunt still frequented by Vienna's artists and intellectuals
Ach, the undying charm of the Viennese coffee house, or konditorei. Is there any other institution that feels so locked in the golden haze of centuries past? The best ones feel like old stage sets: elegantly burnished with age and haunted by the players who have gone before you. Coffee arrives on a silver tray, always accompanied by a glass of water with a spoon lying face-down across its rim. And in the time-honored tradition of the Viennese coffee house, you can linger for hours without ordering more than a single espresso. That’s what 300 years of social ritual grants you. It’s no wonder UNESCO includes Viennese café culture in the national inventory of “intangible cultural heritage,” citing: A coffeehouse is a place where time and space are consumed, but only the coffee is found on the bill.
Cafe Central
It sounds like a joke but it’s right there on their website: “A revolutionary (Trotsky), a psychoanalyst (Freud), a writer (Zweig) and an architect (Loos) walk into a café…” That’s Café Central in a nutshell. Housed in a palatial Italianate mansion a few minutes’ walk from the Hofberg Palace, this legendary café has been caffeinating Vienna’s most provocative thinkers since 1876. The cathedral-like interior, decorative vaulted ceilings, and forest of marble columns will quicken your heart rate even before your Viennese cappuccino arrives. And remember: once seated, you enter what’s locally known as the “Konditorei Time Portal” where time spins backwards, so crack open Beware of Pity and sink into your own personal vacation. Note: Avoid going at peak hours unless you are prepared for a slightly spirit-dampening line of people outside. The line usually moves quickly, however, and it’s worth the wait.
Lovely 360 view of the café HERE
Café Hawelka
“People are always going into Café Hawelka, but none of them seem to come out again. Whatever does the Hawelka do with its guests?” –Friedrich Torberg, Austrian writer
Although not the oldest café by a long shot, Café Hawelka is my personal favorite and, to some, the most iconic of them all. So innocuous-looking on the outside that you could easily walk right by it, Hawelka is the CBGB’s of Vienna. Owned by the same family since 1936, it boasts the kind of dark, cozy, slightly seedy interior that attracts those who like their coffee filtered through an atmosphere of patina. The worn sofa you’re sitting on was probably just as threadbare when Ernest Hemingway or Richard Burton or Andy Warhol sat on it. Yes, the paint is peeling and the walls are scarred with visitors’ initials, and sure, your marble table may need a matchbook under one leg, but the waitstaff is kind, the food is delicious, and the crowd is a mix of neighborhood locals and interesting strangers. You’ll want to write your next novel here, whether you’re a writer or not.
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Written by Lisa Borgnes Giramonti and Meghan McEwen, IN HAND is part travelogue and part travel ethos — exploring the intersection of design, craft and travel; celebrating people, places and objects.