The Top 11 Cafés of Vienna

In addition to the traditional cozy cafés and small coffee bars, café-restaurants, coffee shops, and pastry shops may also be found in Vienna. Not to mention the combinations of a coffee house with pub, bookshop, bar, musical locales, cabaret stages etc.

Today, there are also efforts to give a fast-food character to the café. However, the coffee shop essentially remains an oasis in everyday life, a place where we can meet, doggo, where we can abandon ourselves to the enjoyment of being at leisure.

Traditional coffees are sure to charm you with their many variations of coffee, international newspaper selections, and delicious pastry creations. Since 2011, the culture of Viennese coffees is even part of the intangible cultural heritage of UNESCO.

Modern representatives of the genre add a touch of style to tradition. Pastries are the cousins of the coffee and their offer of tarts and cakes -including the famous gugelhupf, sachertorte and others- guarantee a “dolce vita” in a Viennese way.

Vienna cafés are inseparable accessories of Viennese life. Most of them still preserve the unchanged bourgeois and bohemian atmosphere of the fin de siecle. The elegant-looking cafés in Vienna have an ancient atmosphere and you should not miss them during your trip to the Austrian capital!  We present to you the most famous cafés in Vienna hereunder:

 

11. Café Landtmann

• Address: Dr. Karl Lueger Ring 4, Vienna
• Telephone:  +43 1 24 100-120
• Underground: U3 subway station Herrengasse
• Opening hours: 7.30-24 h every day
• More information about the coffee house: www.cafe-wien.at

When Franz Landtmann opened Vienna’s largest and most elegant café in 1873, he founded a Viennese coffee house institution. With its spacious terrace looking on the prestigious Ring, Cafe Landtmann is the meeting place of the Austrian intelligentsia – we rarely meet tourists here. Since then it has been one of the most popular cafés in Vienna.

Velvet furniture, crystal chandeliers, and wood grain mirrors hallmark the elegance of the place – life goes non-stop in the four halls of the upscale and expensive café. The Vienna coffee shop offers a rich selection of hot drinks and coffee specialties.

Peter Altenberg, Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Max Reinhardt, Marlene Dietrich, Romy Schneider, Burt Lancaster, Hans Moser, Dutch Queen Juliane, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sir Paul Mc Cartney have already visited this famous coffee shop Vienna. Enjoy traditional coffee house atmosphere without smoke: the entire Café Landtmann is a non-smoking area.

Before or after a visit to the Burgtheater, Café Landtmann should not be missed. You may find the prices a bit high, but the atmosphere is worth it. The staff is very friendly and attentive. You will not be disappointed if you enter in this wonderful café. The fun is guaranteed!

 

10. Café Sperl

• Address: Gumpendorfer Strasse 11, Vienna
• Telephone: +43 1 5864158
• Underground: U3 subway station Herrengasse
• Opening hours: Monday-Saturday 7-23 pm, Sunday and public holidays 11-20 h
• More information about the coffee house: www.cafesperl.at

Café Sperl is known for its old-fashioned charm. Crackling parquet, fine stuccos, walls covered with wood paneling and old French billiard tables coated with green baize await the guests. This is the oldest Viennese coffee house with equipment that remained unchanged.

The Vienna coffee shop built in an Empire-style opened in 1880. The regulars were artists, singers, and musicians from the nearby Theater an der Wien from the beginning, but Lehár Ferenc was also among the frequenters of the café.

Café Sperl has a traditional feeling, and it is well furnished (this is not surprising in the case of a café with such a long history). This is a perfect coffee shop Vienna to relax besides a cup of coffee with a few friends, but if you want to be alone with a book, we still recommend Café Sperl.

This place inspired the movie Before Sunrise. The food and the atmosphere are lovely. A good range of drinks and foods will await you, if you visit this special coffee shop Vienna (both savory and sweet).

Pavel Kohout, Peter Marginter, Peter Henisch, Gabriele Schuster, Kurt Sobotka, and many other famous people are frequenters of this famous café. Even stars from the musicals of the Theater an der Wien and famous writers as Robert Menasse and Michael Köhlmeier love the place.

 

9. Café Sacher

• Address: Philharmonikerstrasse 4, Vienna
• Telephone: +43 (0) 1 514 560
• Underground: U3 Stephansplatz
• Opening hours: 8-23.30 h every day
• More information about the coffee house: www.sacher.com

With it’s chandeliers, waiters, richly decorated red walls and carpets, Sacher is a real tourist attraction. You can try the house specialty, the world-famous, original Sacher-cake (chocolate cake with apricot jam), which was created in 1832 by Franz Sacher.

The Café is part of Hotel Sacher, which is situated in the heart of Vienna. The traditional building stands opposite to the State Opera House, located right next to Kärntner Straße. According to the reviews, this is one of the best-located hotels in Vienna! Guests are more satisfied with the location, as in the case of the city’s other accommodations. A number of coffee specialties with liqueur and a rich selection of teas are also included in the offer. You may find everything what your heart desires behind the beautifully crafted counters. A sea of eye-catching cakes, which triggers that certain Pavlovian reflex.

The Café’s ambiance and service is excellent.  It is definitely one of the things on the to-do-list in Vienna. However, Café Sacher can be very crowded sometimes and the lines of guests outside the door can be quite long.

But once you enter, you can relax and enjoy the special Viennese culinary adventure, the delicately prepared dishes. There is no child menu. The seats are really comfy and the cakes are priced at approximately 6 euro.

 

8. Café Hawelka

• Address: Dorotheergasse 6, Vienna
• Telephone: +43 1 512 82 30
• Opening hours: Mon-Thurs 08:00 – 24:00 h, Fri-Sat 08:00 – 01:00 h, Sundays and public holidays 10:00 – 24:00 h
• More information about the coffee house: www.hawelka.at

The busy café with an old-world atmosphere was opened in the 1930’s. Once upon a time the artists often paid with paintings for the served dishes – as a result, the walls are covered with pictures, including works of Ernst Fuchs.

Café Hawelka is located in the heart of Vienna, in a tiny, little, narrow street of the first district called Dortheerstrasse, within walking distance of the Hofburg.

You have to wait in the door until the stuff lets you in and shows you the place where to sit, then you can order your coffee or your food. The drinks are very tasty and the whole room is really amazing.

This Vienna café is an ideal place for an in-depth observation of the people, because all layers of the Viennese population often visit this place, just as students and famous people. This is a little, bohemian world that is hidden from the curious regard of the street.

If you enter, you will suddenly have the feeling that you bumped into a Graham Greene novel or a Carol Reed movie and you will look for Orson Welles on the adjacent table. The coffee is of very high quality, just as the pastry. You should try melange.

 

7. Café Demel

• Address: Kohlmarkt 14, Vienna
• Telephone: +43 1 5351717
• Underground: U3 subway station Herrengasse
• Open: 10 to 19 h every day
• More information about the coffee house: www.demel.at

Café Demel is a pilgrimage for the cake lovers. The café opened in 1786 and it became the favorite meeting place of the upper class people by the 19th century, even Empress Sissi ordered her favorite sweetness from here.

The original entrance hall and the sales room in the beautiful rococo salons will lead you to the “Rauchsalon” and the spacious lounges on the first and second floors.

On the first cold day of the year, every chic lady who had some kind of self-respect, had to go past the Demel and drink a hot chocolate. The Demel has always been a popular meeting place for the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie.

This café Vienna is an expensive, elegant, typically Viennese pastry shop with mirrors. You can find a cake very similar to Hotel Sacher’s, the difference between them is that in Demel Sacher’s cake, apricot jam is not in the middle, but beneath the coating. This charmingly fancy place offers you goulash soup, Kaiser Schmarrn.

In this Vienna coffee shop you may buy extraordinarily beautiful packaged sweets -candies, sweets, chocolates, cakes- although quite expensively. One of the café’s specialties is candied violets. Café Demel is not suited for big groups, because the tables are small.

6. Café Aida

• Address: Singerstraße 1, Vienna
• Telephone: +43 1 8908988210
• Opening hours: 7.00 h to 23.00 h every day
• More information about the coffee house: aida.at

The coffee house chain has more shops, so if you go to Vienna, the choice is yours. It is worth visiting the pink “fairy tale world” – the offers are cheap but copious: here you’ll find cookies, cakes, sandwiches and of course very delicious Viennese coffee. There are a lot of seats, the strudel with ice cream is really tasty.

Since 1958, Café Aida has been importing coffee beans from the best cultivation areas in Brazil, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Two to three times a week, up to five high-quality Arabica coffees are gently roasted in Vienna in a strictly confidential mixing ratio, which makes Aida coffee particularly easy to digest for the stomach.

This distinguishes it from the Italian coffee, which contains a high proportion of cheap Robusta coffee beans. Depending on the preparation (simple, double, extended), Aida-coffee is characterized by the multi-layered aroma and the fine acid nuances typical of the natural Arabica beans. The top quality of the raw beans and the mild roasting also make the Aida coffee ideal for home use.

The cakes are freshly made by hand and there is a wide range to choose from (Malakofkuchen etc.)!  One of the cafés is next to St. Stevens Cathedral, so if you come from there, it is nice to sit down for an exquisite coffee and a cake to relax. The staff are really helpful and nice.

 

5. Café Central

• Address: Herrengasse 14, Vienna
• Telephone: +43 1 5333763
• Underground: U3 subway station Herrengasse
• Opening hours: Monday-Saturday: 7:30 to 22:00 Sunday: 10:00 to 22:00
• More information about the coffee house: www.palaisevents.at

Café Central is one of the most famous cafés, if not the most famous café in Vienna from the 19th century. It was the meeting point of the urban intelligentsia, where the poet Altenberg has created a literary circle, and even his mail was delivered there. The Vienna café is located in the historic Palace Ferstel. Many celebrities -including Trotsky- visited the café.

A full round, bright room with tall, gothic columns awaits the entering guests and a small orchestra continuously plays waltz. The swirl just captivates you. The melange is a little bit overvalued, but if you think that this is too expensive, then you can choose from another 16 types of coffee.

The interior of the café Vienna is breath-taking and a pianist is there to entertain you while you eat or drink your coffee (sometimes he plays Kálmán Imre songs). On weekday afternoons, you can get a table without a reservation. The waiters speak several languages, they are very kind and helpful.  There is a large selection of cookies to choose from, they are really delicious. But you can also have dinner here, not only cookies. The place is very intimate, as if we were flying back to the days of the monarchy. The service is perfect, the cakes and teas/coffees are excellent, but expensive too. You will not regret it if you come around.  

 

4. Vollpension

•  Address: Schleifmuhlgasse 16 | 1040 Vienna
• Telephone: +43 1 5850464
• Opening hours: Sun 09:00 h to 20:00 h, Tue – Thu 09:00 h to 22:00 h, Fri – Sat 09:00 h to 00:00 h
• More informations about the coffee house: www.vollpension.wien

Vollpension is a charming, authentic generation coffee house in the middle of Vienna, a place designed with a shabby chic furniture and décor ran by a bunch of people who want to bring old and young people together and a bit closer. Grandma’s food and drink at the Kuchltisch serves as a communication catalyst between generations.

Vollpension is for our grandmothers and grandparents and offers the most delicious cakes and tarts of this city. Beside the cakes, they have pipifeines breakfast and a small but fine selection of spicy snacks to enjoy. With all their dishes, Vollpension find it really important to use regional ingredients.

No blabla but full of serious and deep conviction. Dairy products from the city, meat and eggs from farmers from the region around Vienna, vegetables and fruit from the Naschmark Standler, daily fresh bread from top bakeries. Just taste it.

Here you can get delicious cakes. This coffee shop is installed like if you were entering into granny’s house with sofas and chairs all over the place. Many people are visiting this place, sometimes it is hard to get a table, but don’t worry: if you try to avoid peak midday rush, you won’t be disappointed.

 

 3. Kurkonditorei Oberlaa

• Address: Neuer Markt 16, Vienna
• Telephone: +43 1 513 29 360
• Opening hours: 08:00 h – 20:00 h every day
• More informations about the coffee house: www.oberlaa-wien.at

If you were walking around the 1st District, this coffee house is an ideal place to fill yourself up with a snack (toast, soup, salads, schnitzel, pasta) or a delicious cake. Austrian Knoedel and Kaiserschmarren are also included on the menu.

This exciting café is situated in the historic center of Vienna and it’s decoration is very stylish. You should definitely visit this place, which is one of the best ones among the cafés Vienna! It is cozily furnished with comfortable upholstery, huge windows and fine coffees.   

The café Vienna offers a wide range of sweetnesses (cake Oberlaa, chocolate mousse and apple strudel), which are around 4.00 euros. Not very cheap, but it is worth it. The staff is really helpful and mindful, they will help you if suddenly you cannot choose. If you are a coffee lover, you should not miss the place.

This modern coffee house that has a very good selection of gluten free cakes, so gluten-intolerant people will also be happy here. A pleasant way to spend a relaxing hour after walking around Vienna.

Fine quality pastries and desserts are there to please and pamper you. Cozy furnished, comfortable upholstery, huge windows and fine coffees. It is especially suitable if you plan to depart from Wien Mitte to Vienna Airport with the CAT.     

 

 2. Budapest Bistro

• Address: Taborstraße 10, Vienna
• Telephone: +43 699 17148736
• Opening hours: 8.00 h- 22.00 h every day
• More information about the coffee house: www.budapestbistro.at

The bistro in the heart of Vienna provides a generous offer for early risers who want to quickly take a coffee and a small snack on the way to the subway as well as for long-sleeved people who want to eat a rich breakfast.

Not only the cozy furnishings and the pleasant atmosphere attract the guests, but also the colorful offer (breakfast, sweet and savory snacks, warm giant breads, coffee, various tea mixtures, homemade syrup, homemade jam and other various specialties from Hungary)

 The café Vienna gives the impression of an ordinary hipster coffee at first glimpse, but when you spend a little bit more time inside, you will discover the real charme of a viennese coffee house, with little details such as classically white-shirted waiters and the calming atmosphere.  You will find enough varieties on the menu so that you can visit the place more often. Vegetarians or vegans will not be disappointed: there are options either for them. The coffee is good without any exaggerated fanciness. The food is also enjoyable and the prices aren’t too high.  You can get 5 delicious pastries and a coffee of your choice for 5 Euro. The Café is not ostentatious which makes it a really friendly and sympahtetic choice to hang around.      

    

 1. Konditorei Heiner

• Address: Kaerntner Strasse 21-23
• Telephone: +43 1 5122343
• Opening hours: Sun 10:00 h – 19:30 h, Mon – Sat 08:30 – 19:30
• More information about the coffee house: www.heiner.co.at

Tripadvisor marks this coffee house as #1 among cafés Vienna, which definitely encourages us to visit  the place. The warm wait-staff only consists of females, who are wearing a traditional costume uniform. Konditorei Heiner is a traditional coffee shop located near the cathedral.

There is a huge selection of cakes (chocolate cake, Esterhazyschnitte and strawberry cake for example). If you just spent a long day walking around Vienna, this rustic, homely and cozy place might be the ideal destination to take some relaxation.

“The Heiner”, as the company is known by the Viennese, exists for more than 175 years. Soon after the founding in 1840 the small bakery developed in the Wollzeile to the well-known Café-Konditorei in the heart of Vienna.

With the disintegration of the monarchy and the great economic crisis, “Heiner” also had hard times. It was not until the second world war that things went up steep again. In 1977, the Republic of Austria honored the company with the State Award.

Dr. Paulus Stuller and Mag. (FH) Michael Stuller are currently continuing the long-standing family tradition. Like their ancestors, they attach significant importance to the uniqueness of the offer, the quality of the products and the training of their employees.

Summary

In addition to their historicity and their special mood, Vienna cafés even deserve appreciation because of their respect towards coffee culture and coffee consumption. They pay great attention to the preservation of appearances and follow the tradition of making a good coffee, the secrets that were passed from generation to generation.

This is exactly what gives soul to the coffee, knowledge and careful attention is needed for the preparation of a good coffee in all phases (from roasting through preparation to serving). And of course, in order to be able to enjoy a good coffee experience we should not forget that coffee tasting is an art.

We created an infographics for this article. You can download it as well.

 

 

 

 

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