Vienna is a stunning city to city – the capital of an empire that was at one time Europe’s greatest, this is a city that was built with an eye for grandeur. Imposing buildings and an old-world sensibility infusing every street. While we don’t always judge a city by how good their bars and pubs are, it is often a good indication of what life is like. If we were selecting holiday destinations based on how much they love their booze, then Vienna would score very highly indeed.

Coffee and cake

Vienna has a long and rich tradition of a cafe culture. This is the city where writers, thinkers, and intellectuals from around the world would spend their days in cafes, talking, arguing, debating, smoking, and drinking. Today most of the originally coffee houses and cafes are still standing, relatively unchanged from this golden intellectual age. Cakes are a big feature in all of these cafes – huge slabs of freshly baked cakes of all descriptions. And then of course there is the coffee. You may have heard of the a Vienna Coffee which is generally black coffee served with whipped cream on top, but in a way that is a dumbed down version of the extraordinary coffee creations that Vienna’s cafes are serving up. Spend time reading through the long coffee menu that you will be presented with and you will see that there are a myriad of different coffees available, all served with a healthy shot of booze. There are some classic combinations, but also each cafe will generally have their own signature coffee creation of strong coffee, their favourite alcohol, and a bit of whipped cream on top. Cafe Central is one of the originals and always popular with tourists, but I prefer Cafe Landtmann, or Cafe Mozart. There is nothing better than a big slice of gugelhopf cake matched with the apricot brandy flavoured coffee at Cafe Landtmann.

The American influence

My favourite bar in Vienna is a tiny little cocktail bar called Loos American Bar. It was originally founded by the architect Adolf Loos – inspired by his travels in the United States he wanted to create a cocktail bar in the American style. In the warm weather you can sit outside at sidewalk tables, but inside things are cosy and you will generally have to share your table with other patrons or prop yourself up near the bar. This is the kind of cocktail bar that you would like to move into – friendly staff, a great cocktail list, and a warm and relaxing environment. They do all the classics here, so you can’t go wrong with any of your choices. My favourite is their Danish Manhattan – pretty much a traditional Manhattan but with a maraschino cherry lurking in the bottom of the glass to add a bit of depth of flavour. The Danish Manhattan – perhaps not a drink that you would normally associate with Vienna but it is always a drink that I associate with Loos American Bar.

Vienna. A stunning city that does great coffee, cake, and booze. What more could you want from a holiday destination?

Photo Credit: Denis Krafczyk under Creative Commons License