Café Central is the most famous café in all of Vienna. Lenin, Trotsky and Freud all sipped hot beverages at Café Central at some point. Ministry buildings surround the soaring building, so there are lots of counsellors – government workers, many within the diplomatic ranks – here today, or so says my guide and traditional coffee-house expert, Diane Naar, as we take our seats during the first stop on my Viennese café tour.
So how, pray tell, does she know that they are counsellors? “The fact that there are two or three men together,” Diane explains, “and they all have laptops with them.”
I nod approvingly as I order a café mélange, which quickly becomes my go-to coffee during my week in the city (a mélange is a mokka – strong black coffee – lengthened with a shot of hot water and the addition of steamed and frothed milk). I also take in the Café Central's 1857 interior, an amazing space of vaulted ceilings, Florentine pillars and parquet flooring, all hard surfaces working together in echoing the hiss of the non-stop espresso machine.
Cafe melange served in the proper Viennese manner: on a silver tray with a bowl of sugar, a small glass of water and a paper napkin.— Amy Rosen for The Globe and Mail
Over the past century and a half, different coffee houses grew up with different clientele; be they lawyers or students, accountants or starlets, counsellors or artists, the coffee house was always a warm gathering spot (in a time when there was no central heating) offering hot coffee and a cozy hub where the intelligentsia could meet to read newspapers and discuss the matters of the day. For the most part, Vienna's classic cafés remain largely untouched, with many dating to the fin de siècle (end of the century – in this case, the 19th century). And they charmingly remain a way of life here.
Down a side street between the Spanish Riding School and the Jewish Museum, Diane leads me into Café Braunerhof. “They are all Viennese here,” she says as I quickly thumb through the newspaper selection in the middle of the room.
Café Braunerhof is an old school haunt where nothing has changed – ever. A smoky patina clings to the unadorned walls; the air is literally a blue haze. “Tourists don't come here,” Diane notes. “They walk in, see the smoke, they see the tables are full and the waiters are grumpy, and they leave.”
After hitting more than a few cafés already, we decide a light snack is in order – real classic dishes that you only get at a real classic Viennese café: like my deeply chickeny broth laced with crepes that have been sliced into noodles, and Diane's dark beef broth buoyed by a fat liver dumpling.
“This is not a traditional coffee house,” Diane cautions as she leads me into our next stop, Demel. “They earned their name for their pastries, which supplied the Royal Court.” Since their pastries were of the utmost importance, the quality of their coffee suffered, she explains. No problem. I order a mug of Demel's soulful hot chocolate instead, along with a plate of powdered krapfen, cheesy topfenstrudel, and apple-packed apfelstrudel – all in the name of research.
Classic pastries at Demel, longtime bakers to the royal court.— Amy Rosen for The Globe and Mail
Demel's circa-19th-century decor can best be described as eclecticism with a bit of baroque and rococo thrown in. There are English chairs and Parisian marble tabletops. Pastry chefs behind the glass walls framing the central show kitchen make cakes and marzipan bears. Diane says that when the planners were building the grand palaces on the Ringstrasse (the wide avenue that encircles the old city), they all had to have cafés. And because of its proximity to the Royal Palace, Demel is the café that the aristocrats frequented, and descendents of these same dukes and counts still have flats nearby.
