Viennese coffee house

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Coffee house culture: the daily newspaper and the coffee served with a glass of water
Peaceful ambience from the 1920s in Café Goldegg
In the Café Central
A pub garden  - here from Café Prückel

As a gastronomic facility , the Viennese coffee house is a typical Viennese institution, which is still an important part of Viennese tradition today. The Viennese coffeehouse culture belongs since 2011 to the intangible cultural heritage of UNESCO . In his memoir Die Welt von Gestern (Die Welt von Gestern), Stefan Zweig wrote about his youth in Vienna that the Viennese coffee house “is a special kind of institution that cannot be compared with any similar institution in the world”.

Quirk

In contrast to an ordinary café , in a Viennese coffee house it was quite common for a guest who only ordered one coffee to be allowed to sit at their table for hours and study the available newspapers extensively or work as a writer here. The newspapers were stretched out on newspaper stands, which were usually made of thin bentwood . In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the country's leading writers used various coffee houses not only as places for exchanging ideas, but also directly for writing, which is known as coffee house literature .

The illustrated guide through Vienna and its surroundings, published around 1900 , which also informed visitors to Vienna about the function of Viennese coffee houses, defined this institution as follows:

“The coffeehouses are of the greatest importance for the social and partly also for the business life of Vienna. In the afternoon hours in particular a not insignificant part of the traffic takes place in them, and the 'regular coffee house' is a meeting place. "

The furnishings of the typical Viennese coffee house ranged from cozy and plush to cool and stylish. Thonet armchairs from the former Vienna-based Thonet armchair manufacture and coffee house tables with marble tops are considered classic . One of the best-preserved coffee houses is Café Sperl , which has an unadulterated, not modernized, but heavily restored facility. The Café Central in the Palais Ferstel (built according to plans by the architect Heinrich von Ferstel ) has been housed in a monumental hall in the neo-renaissance style since its reopening in 1975 , while the Café Prückel has a facility from the 1950s that has been faithfully preserved. The Café Westend offers authentic worn charm.

Often there is the so-called Schanigarten in front of the restaurant , where you can watch people passing by while drinking coffee.

In the coffee mostly small dishes such as sausages and pastries , cakes, pies or Café Hawelka the famous dumplings offered. However, some coffee houses also offer a full selection of dishes from Viennese and international cuisine.

In many classic Viennese coffee houses ( e.g. Café Ritter , Café Diglas , Café Central or Café Prückel ), piano music is played on certain days of the week in the evenings, from 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. - occasionally accompanied by special themed programs and other performances such as literary readings. In addition, however, there is generally no musical sound in Viennese coffee houses.

For decades there were a number of coffee houses in Vienna that were permanently open until well after midnight, namely Cafe Drechsler , Kaffee Urania and Kaffee Alt Wien . While Kaffee Alt Wien is continuing this tradition, Café Drechsler has only been open on weekends past midnight since 2013. The coffee Urania , which traditionally had the longest night-time opening, was closed at the end of January 2016.

Viennese coffee house billiards

Löwsche's Coffee House 1842

The game of billiards, which had been widespread since the 17th century, quickly found its way into Viennese coffee houses. As early as 1745 , Maria Theresa felt compelled to regulate the installation in the coffee houses. So it was only allowed to set up billiard tables in ground-level taprooms with windows facing the alley. In the beginning it was still a "noble game", but soon the educated middle class gained access to the game (Mozart also liked to play a game). For the first time in 1781, the Leopoldstadt coffee maker Leichnamschneider received permission to set up a billiard room on the first floor of his coffee house. At the time, professionals mainly played in Café Hugelmann , then in Café Neuner in Plankengasse. The "Milanische Kaffeehaus", threatened by decay, was taken over by Peter Corti in 1808, where billiards found a special home. From 1805, French officers brought the "French billiards" ( carom ), which is still common today, to Vienna. Billiards was most widespread since the pre-March period, especially when billiard tables were found in better or specialized coffee houses. As gambling became cheaper in the mid-19th century, it quickly became more widespread. At this time, the typical Viennese “ coffee house billiards ” was created, a smaller than the usual carom table with the special dimensions 95 × 190 cm. Well-known billiard cafés at the time included Café Adami (1728–1866, named after Dominik Adami), Regensburger Hof , Silver Coffee House (1808–1855, a total of 28 tables!), And Café Stierböck (from 1790 until the house was demolished). Most of the time there was also a billiards school or university in the cafés. From 1845 onwards, coffee makers had to pay a tax, known as the billiards fee, which the cooperative demanded to be abolished in 1895. From the middle of the 19th century it was “good form” to play billiards. After the “Austrian Amateur Billard Club” was founded in 1931, the “First Ottakringer Billard Club” found its home from 1936 in the Billard Café Ritter (16th district, Ottakringer Strasse 117). One of the cafés with billiards that still exist today is Café Weingartner , run by Austrian state master Heinrich Weingartner , which has existed since 1875 at Goldschlaggasse 6 in the 15th district. There were similar institutions e.g. B. also in Berlin with the “Café Kerkau” on Friedrichstrasse (run by world champion Hugo Kerkau) or the “Café Woerz” on Nollendorfplatz.

history

Georg Franz Kolschitzky, according to legend, founder of the Viennese coffee house

Legend has it that during the liberation from the Second Turkish Siege in 1683 the Viennese found some sacks of strange beans, which they initially thought were camel fodder and wanted to burn. King Jan III Sobieski is said to have given these to his officer and interpreter named Georg Franz Kolschitzky . He would have taken the sacks and founded the first coffee house. However, this story is made up; the piarist Gottfried Uhlich put it into the world in 1783 in his chronicle "History of the second Turkish siege of Vienna, at the time of the hundred-year memorial feast" .

In fact, the first Viennese coffee house dates from this time. On January 17, 1685, Emperor Leopold I granted an Armenian named Johannes Theodat the freedom to “prepare the Turkish drink as caffe, tea and sherbet” as thanks for his services. Theodat, also known as Deodat or Diodato, received approval for two decades and immediately opened his coffee house, a single room with simple wooden benches in the Hachenberg house on Haarmarkt, today Rotenturmstrasse 14. The Greeks later had the monopoly on serving coffee.

The new drink was very well received by the Viennese population, so that the number of coffee houses grew rapidly. In 1819 there were already 150 coffee makers, 25 of them in the city center. Around 1900 there were 600 coffee houses in Vienna; the guests were almost exclusively men. Back then, the coffee house was a meeting place in the play and smoking salons integrated into it. Women were only allowed to enter when accompanied by men. In the early days of the coffee houses, the coffee variants usually had no names. According to an anecdote by Friedrich Torberg, the waiter in a coffee house is said to have handed the guest a color palette on which the strength of the coffee was symbolized in color gradations from black to milky-white, whereupon he chose by pointing to the desired color.

Peter Altenberg 1909

The Viennese coffee house experienced its heyday at the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century, when so-called coffee house literary figures such as Peter Altenberg , Arthur Schnitzler , Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Alfred Polgar , Karl Kraus , Stefan Zweig , Hermann Broch and Friedrich Torberg became their favorite cafés - and made a job. Many well-known artists, scientists, technicians and politicians of the time, including Egon Schiele , Gustav Klimt , Oskar Kokoschka , Adolf Loos , Theodor Herzl , Siegfried Marcus and Leon Trotsky , were frequent guests in the coffee house. In Prague , Budapest , Lviv , Trieste and other major cities in Austria-Hungary, there were also many coffee houses based on the Viennese model, some of which still exist today.

“It is a special kind of institution that cannot be compared with any similar institution in the world. It is actually a kind of democratic club, accessible to everyone for a cheap cup of coffee, where every guest can sit for hours, discuss, write, play cards, receive their mail and, above all, consume an unlimited number of newspapers and magazines for this small fee. We sat for hours every day and nothing escaped us. "

- Stefan Zweig

The "coffee house dying" began in 1950 when some famous Viennese coffee houses had to close, caused by changed leisure habits (e.g. the growing popularity of television) and the emergence of "modern" espresso bars. On Vienna's Ringstrasse , for example, of 15 coffeehouses listed in the “golden age” before World War I, around four survived until 2014. Three are original cafes under the same name, one was renamed to the surrounding hotel and another became a new “lounge” in a hotel. Nevertheless, there are still quite a few of these typical Viennese restaurants that have retained their original charm, especially since a new interest in the coffee house tradition has generally been observed since the 1990s.

Literary cafes

The Grienstidl 1896

Only the leading literary café could be clearly identified at any time, the Café Griensteidl, for example, where the representatives of the “Jung Wien” met around 1890 during the fin de siècle era : Arthur Schnitzler , Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Richard Beer-Hofmann , Hermann Bahr , Felix Salten . From 1899, the literary cafés also included the museum with its well-known furnishings designed by Adolf Loos . Regular guests included the painters Gustav Klimt , Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka , the writers Joseph Roth , Karl Kraus , Georg Trakl , Elias Canetti , Hermann Broch , Robert Musil and Leo Perutz , the composers Alban Berg , Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus as well as the architects Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos as guests. After the demolition of the Griensteidl , the Café Central followed until the end of the First World War with its regulars Karl Kraus, Peter Altenberg , Egon Friedell , Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Polgar and Leon Trotsky .

It was replaced by the Herrenhof café . It opened at the beginning of the First World War. His regular guests included Hermann Broch , Robert Musil , Franz Werfel , Leo Perutz as well as Joseph Roth and Otto Soyka . After the Second World War, it lived a shadowy existence, before it was temporarily closed in 1960, converted into a kind of espresso in 1967 and closed its doors forever on June 30, 2006. From 1961 onwards, Café Hawelka functioned as the center of sociable artistic life - albeit always in competition with other cafés such as the Museum , the Imperial or one of the countless less famous houses. Along the chain of these cafés you will come across the names of artists, poets and writers who met here. Despite the generational change, the tradition, which was by no means limited to Vienna, was continued seamlessly. Quite a few “Centralists” came from Bohemia , many regulars of the Herrenhof from Prague, where they had frequented Franz Kafka's regular café Arco before 1918 .

Making coffee

"Kleiner Brauner" on the typical serving tray in a Viennese coffee house

“ In Vienna, almost every coffee house has a blend of different types of coffee beans, which every coffee maker naturally keeps as a 'trade secret'. Otherwise the coffee will be made all over Vienna and not brewed. A certain amount of very finely grated coffee is poured into the boiling water (to 1 liter 8-10 Deka ), stirred with a spoon, and after it has been blown up several times, poured into the elevator machine, whereupon it is drawn up very slowly. Egg yolks, fizzy with water, are often added to coffee to clarify the coffee. The pure coffee that has been drawn up is then kept hot in well-closing porcelain jugs in the water bath. "

- FJ Beutel : Die modern Getränke - 1212 recipes with 68 illustrations , Heinrich Killinger Kochkunstverlag, Leipzig and Nordhausen, 2nd edition, undated (approx. 1925)

The term “coffee maker” is derived from making coffee , as the operators of coffee houses were called. The traditional ball that has been held by the associated guild in Vienna since 1956 is the “Coffee Boiler Ball”, now one of the largest balls of the Vienna ball season .

Brewed coffee was also prepared in Vienna, but given the name "Karlsbader" after the floor jug required for it, the " Karlsbader jug ".

In the long-standing Viennese coffee house tradition, around 50 coffee preparations were served, which varied with the bowl sizes or arrangement in special glasses, the addition or omission of sugar, cream, whipped cream, milk, milk foam, milk skin, spirits and the order or layering of the additions .

Well-known Viennese coffee houses

Café Landtmann
Café Prückel
Café Hawelka
Café Eiles

In Vienna there are over 1,100 cafés of all kinds, almost 1,000 espresso bars and over 200 café-pastry shops. The most famous coffee houses, some of which still have original furnishings, are:

In the 1st district (inner city)

In other districts

Others

The Club of Viennese Coffee House Owners is organizing a flea market in and with the Burgtheater in 2017 , with items from the theater and cafes. Part of the proceeds will benefit the pianists in the coffee houses.

literature

  • Helmuth Burgert: The Viennese coffee house . Heimat Verlag, Brixlegg o. J. [1937], Österreichische Bücherei 2
  • Milan Dubrović : The Vienna salons and literary cafés . Zsolnay, Vienna / Hamburg 1985, ISBN 3-552-03705-5 .
  • Kurt-Jürgen Heering (ed.): The Viennese coffee house . Insel, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-458-33018-6 .
  • Rick Rodgers: The Coffee House. 120 classic recipes and stories from Vienna, Budapest and Prague . Christian-Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-88472-572-6 (cookbook with many photos).
  • Michael Rössner (ed.): Literary coffee houses, coffee house literary experts . Böhlau, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-205-98630-X .
  • Wolfram Siebeck : The coffee houses of Vienna. A mix of myth and abuse . Heyne, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-453-11530-9 / Edition Wien, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85058-125-X (tries to evaluate atmosphere, quality and newspaper offer, with many photos).
  • Hans Veigl (ed.): Local legends. Viennese coffee house literature . Kremayr and Scheriau, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-218-00530-2 , also Hanser, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-446-16429-4 , extended and annotated new edition: oekom verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-86581-023 -6 (Much historical information about the coffee houses).
  • Christopher Wurmdobler: Coffee houses in Vienna. A guide through a Viennese institution. Classics, modern cafes, pastry shops, coffee shops . 2nd Edition. Falter Verlag, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-85439-439-6 .

Web links

Commons : Cafés in Vienna  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Coffee houses become cultural heritage on ORF from November 10, 2011.
  2. ↑ Viennese coffee house culture. In: UNESCO Directory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Austria. Austrian UNESCO Commission, accessed on February 21, 2012 .
  3. ↑ Stefan Zweig: The world of yesterday. Memories of a European (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1986), 56.
  4. ↑ a b Hardly any cafe survived the golden era. In: wien.orf.at. January 2, 2015, accessed January 2, 2015 . It exists clockwise: Café Prückel (Stubenring 24, exists) Café Schüsswald (Parkring 2), Café Katzmeyr (Parkring 8), Café Krippel (Parkring 10), Café Union (Kolowratring 2, today Schubertring), Café Schwarzenberg (Kärntner Ring 17, exists), Café Frohner (Kärntnerring 16, named after the hotel leaseholder at the time, became Café Imperial in the hotel of the same name ), Café Kremser (Kärntnerring 8, today Hotel " The Ring " with restaurant and bar), Café Bristol ( Kärntnerring 2, new “lounge” in the hotel of the same name), Café Bauer (Opernring 8), Café de L'Opera (Opernring 8), Café Landtmann (Universitätsring 4, exists), Café Universität (new from the end of 1932: Café Bastei, Schottengasse 11 / Franzensring 14, today: Universitätsring 14; see: The newly opened Café "Bastei", Vienna, I., Ring des 12 November, corner of Schottengasse. Owner: Pöchhacker and Dörner. In:  Dasinteresting sheet , No. 52/1932 , December 29, 1932, p. 18. (Online at ANNO ). ), Café Victoria (new from spring 1929 ; Schottengasse 10 / Schottentor / corner of Schottenring 1; see: The newly opened "Café Victoria" at Schottentor. In:  The Interesting Sheet , No. 10/1929, March 7, 1929, p. 21. (Online at ANNO ). ), Café Mandl (Schottenring 13), Café Lloyd (Schottenring 19, last for a long time under the name Café Schottenring, closed in July 2012, the premises are empty. Before the time as a café, it was a beer hall.) The new addition in 1935 was the one in place Café Ministry created from a hardware store ( Georg-Coch-Platz 4 / corner of Stubenring 6).
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  5. ↑ Andrea Gleininger: The coffee house chair No. 14 by Michael Thonet . Birkhäuser, Frankfurt / M. 1998, ISBN 3-7643-6832-2 .
  6. ↑ a b billiards. Viennese coffee house. Vienna History Wiki, April 25, 2017, accessed on October 26, 2018 .
  7. ^ Cafe Adami. (1st district, Rotenturmstrasse 25). Vienna History Wiki, August 14, 2018, accessed on October 26, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Silver Coffee House. (1st district, Seilergasse 18, identical to Spiegelgasse 17 and Plankengasse 4). Vienna History Wiki, August 14, 2018, accessed on October 26, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Café Stierböck. (2nd district, Kraterstraße 4, at the former bridge, now Sweden bridge). Vienna History Wiki, August 14, 2018, accessed on October 26, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Who brought coffee to Vienna ( Memento from April 29, 2001 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ^ Teply, Karl: The introduction of coffee in Vienna. Association for the History of the City of Vienna, Vienna 1980, Vol. 6 p. 104. Quoted in: Seibel, Anna Maria: The importance of the Greeks for economic and cultural life in Vienna. P. 94 available online at: http://othes.univie.ac.at/2016/ (as pdf) and http://www.vienna.cc/d/kaffeehaus_geschichte.htm
  12. ^ Vienna History Wiki : Johannes Deodat , accessed on January 11, 2019
  13. ↑ The coffee house: a kind of democratic club ( memento of December 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) in k2 -kultur in centrope
  14. ^ Wiener Kaffeesiederball , accessed on October 27, 2011.
  15. ↑ http://www.wientanz.com/index.php/news/54/52
  16. ↑ Karlsbader Kanne ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kaffee-glossar.com
  17. ↑ The resurrection of a traditional café. In: The press. February 28, 2017. Retrieved February 28, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Cafes and Burgtheater empty stores. In: orf.at , September 22, 2017, accessed September 23, 2017.