21 cafés in 4 citys. Places change: check opening hours before you go.
Viennese confectioner Johann Zauner opened the Pfarrgasse house in 1832 in the spa town where the imperial family spent its summers, and became court supplier. The Zaunerstollen, a chocolate-coated wafer and nut confection, dates from 1905.
Order: Zaunerstollen · Coffee and a slice of torte
💡 A second café, Zauner Esplanade, sits by the River Traun at Hasnerallee 2.
Opened in 1882 on the right bank of the Salzach, looking across to the old town and the fortress. Max Reinhardt and Marlene Dietrich were guests, and festival performers still drop in.
Order: Wiener Melange · Breakfast on the river terrace
💡 Ask for a terrace table facing the river in summer.
Austria's oldest coffeehouse still in business: it started in 1700 (the façade says 1703, a date historians corrected in 2003) and moved to Alter Markt in 1764. Mozart was a guest, and the Tomaselli family has run it since 1852.
Order: Wiener Melange · Cake from the Kaffeedame's tray
💡 A waitress in a white pinafore carries cakes round the room; point at the one you want.
Opened in 1876 in the arcaded ground floor of Palais Ferstel, a former bank and stock-exchange building. It became the classic writers' café of imperial Vienna, where Peter Altenberg was such a fixture that he had his mail delivered here.
Order: Wiener Melange · Apple strudel
💡 Closed for a full renovation from 16 March 2026, with reopening planned for winter 2026; check before going. Meanwhile its sister café DECENTRAL serves at Freyung 3.
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
It has served coffee at this address since 28 October 1824, which makes it Vienna's oldest surviving coffeehouse. The house says Mozart and Beethoven once played here.
Order: Wiener Melange · Topfenstrudel
💡 Two minutes from Stephansdom yet calmer than the big-name cafés.
Leopold Hawelka opened it in 1939, and he and his wife Josefine ran it together for 66 years. After the war it became the meeting place of writers and artists such as Heimito von Doderer, Hundertwasser and Elias Canetti; the third generation runs it now.
Order: Buchteln (made to Josefine's old recipe) · Wiener Melange
💡 Open until midnight or later, a good last stop of the evening.
Franz Landtmann opened it on 1 October 1873 across from the building sites of the new Town Hall and University. Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler and Peter Altenberg were regulars, and the 1929 interior by Ernst Meller, with its carved wooden columns, survives.
Order: Wiener Melange · Apple strudel
💡 Next to the Burgtheater, so it fills up around performances; politicians and journalists still hold press meetings here.
Opened in 1899 with an interior by Adolf Loos, it quickly became a meeting place for Viennese artists including Gustav Klimt and Peter Altenberg.
Order: Wiener Melange · Cake from the counter
💡 Close to the Secession and Naschmarkt; hosts literary readings under the name 'Literatur im Museum'.
The café of Hotel Sacher, facing the State Opera. The Original Sacher-Torte goes back to 1832, when 16-year-old Franz Sacher created it at the court of Prince Metternich.
Order: Original Sacher-Torte with whipped cream · Wiener Melange
💡 Reserve online to skip the queue that forms on the pavement.
Vienna's oldest Ringstrasse café, opened in 1861 near Schwarzenbergplatz. Its interior has stayed largely unchanged since the 19th century.
Order: Wiener Melange · Cake from the cabinet
💡 Opens at 7:30 on weekdays, a good early breakfast stop on the Ring.
A cafetier named Sperl took over the house in 1880, and it has been a coffeehouse near the Naschmarkt ever since. It is on Austria's register of historic places and still keeps three carom billiard tables.
Order: Einspänner · Sperl torte
💡 Piano music on Sunday afternoons from 3:30 pm; closed Sundays in July and August.
A Konditorei since 1786, Demel became k.u.k. Hofzuckerbäcker, confectioner to the imperial and royal court. Its salons on Kohlmarkt still serve the house cakes, sweets and coffee.
Order: Annatorte · Demel's Sachertorte · Kaiserschmarrn
An old-Viennese-style coffeehouse founded in 1847 and still owned by the same family.
Order: Wiener Melange · Linzer Torte
Opened around 1920–21 as Café Sans Souci and renamed Bräunerhof after 1938. It was the favourite café of the writer Thomas Bernhard and keeps a quiet, newspaper-reading pace.
Order: Kleiner Brauner · Cake of the day
A long-established family coffeehouse on the Wollzeile, a few steps from Stephansdom.
Order: Wiener Melange · Apple strudel
Fewer recent sources for this one: check it's open before you go.
A Ringstrasse café since 1903, opposite the Museum of Applied Arts. Its 1950s interior is kept as it was, and it remains an everyday 'second living room' for the neighbourhood.
Order: Wiener Melange · Apple strudel
💡 Terrace tables cannot be reserved; indoor tables can.
An organic-certified roastery café in Alsergrund with communal tables and a garden.
Order: Filter coffee · Cappuccino
💡 Popular with students; the bakery next door at Spitalgasse 15 is part of it.
A roastery café on outer Mariahilfer Straße, ranked second in Europe's 100 Best Coffee Shops 2026, known for light-roast Arabica and coffee workshops.
Order: Pour-over · Espresso
💡 Opens at 7 am on weekdays and is near Westbahnhof, so it works before a train.
A house roastery with four Vienna branches; this Neubau room pairs its own small-batch coffee with fine pâtisserie.
Order: Filter coffee · Flat white · Pastry
A small roastery café in Wieden, one of Vienna's specialty pioneers, pouring rotating espresso roasts, filter and batch brew over a short counter.
Order: Espresso of the day · Batch brew
💡 Closed Sundays; a roomier sister branch is in Mariahilf.
A narrow Neubau coffee bar that set up its own roastery in Wolfsgraben in 2022; it ranks 88th in Europe's 100 Best Coffee Shops 2026.
Order: Espresso · Filter of the day
💡 Few seats; treat it as a counter stop.