Dispatch From the Past: Vienna's Legendary Coffee Houses

Including one housed in an Italianate mansion and frequented by Freud and Stefan Zweig.

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. 

Café Central

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

Address: Herrengasse 14, 1010 Wien