Vienna’s New Coffee House Scene

While the city’s classic cafés are symphonies of Baroque and Art Nouveau, a swirl of polished mahogany and chandelier light, its new-wave coffee shops are often pared-down and Scandi fresh – white-walled temples to the bean. But a few have distinct personalities of their own. Café Glas, off the main shopping street of Mariahilfer Strasse, feels like a cross between a conservatory and a cycle repair shop, with tumbling greenery and road bikes collected by Brazilian owner Raoul, whose wife bakes beijinhos and other pastries to accompany your matcha or cold drip. At Die Cafetière, in the central 1st district, Peggy Strobel of Mraz & Sohn restaurant fame has kept the original 1960s interiors intact – all mosaic tiles, curved brass-edged counter and dark wood – and added her passion for single-origin coffee to the menu along with the best cheese toasties in town. Not far from the Prater Park, with its famous Ferris wheel, foil pendants float above the blue-and-white mosaic bar at Balthasar like a latter-day Secessionist artwork while guests sit at Kartell chairs – anyone who fancies themself as a latte artist can join one of the workshops. Those on an architectural safari of the city, meanwhile, should take a pitstop in Cafe Exchange, which resides in the former cash hall of the imposing Postsparkasse, a marble-and-aluminium-fronted bank designed in 1906 by Modernist legend Otto Wagner.

There’s no cake at Fenster Café, and certainly no chandeliers – the only décor is the graffiti on the walls that surround this hole-in-the-wall window hatch on a cobbled alleyway near the Bürgerhaus in the historic 1st district. But what you do get is damn fine coffee, overseen by grizzle-bearded founder Sashko Iamkovyi. Behind the scenes is a Wonka-ish assemblage of grinders, foamers and espresso machines, along with staff busy making his speciality Fensterccinos – coffee served in a chocolate-covered waffle cone, possibly the city’s most expensive coffee at €11 (although a €2 espresso is also available).