Recommended Vienna accommodation – Vienna hotels, and Vienna hostels: ‘Viennese coffee houses are a place where time and space are consumed, but only the coffee is found on the bill’ – description of the Viennese coffee houses by UNESCOįor that reason, I decided to visit famous Viennese cafes on my trip to Vienna. In 2011 UNESCO listed Viennese coffee culture as the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Traditional Viennese coffee shops adorn sophisticated interiors with wooden floors, high ceilings, large windows, crystal chandeliers, marble tables, iconic bentwood Thonet chairs, and red velvet seats. But the bloom happened in the late 1800s when the Viennese-style coffee houses opened in Venice, Trieste, Verona (Italy), Prague (the Czech Republic), and Zagreb (Croatia). Viennese cafés are popularly known as Vienna’s public living rooms. Coffee shops in Vienna are the places where people sit for hours enjoying chats with friends and acquaintances, re-telling the latest news and gossip, reading newspapers, magazines, and literature, playing chess, billiard, and cards, or simply just people-watching.ĭuring rich Viennese history, famous coffee houses in Vienna have been meeting points of Nobel prize winners, writers, critics, philosophers, composers, bohemians, artists, politicians, and businessmen for more or less serious discussions and debates.Įuropean coffee culture started with the opening of the first coffee houses in Venice (Italy), Oxford (England), and Vienna (Austria) in the 1600s. While the Viennese coffee culture is an institution where coffee drinking is worshiped as an art, Viennese cuisine is the only cuisine in the world named after a city.įor centuries Vienna’s coffee houses have been playing an important role in the social life of Vienna. Not unexpectedly, imperial Vienna is praised as one of the best Christmas destinations in Europe with one of the best Christmas markets in Europe.īut to be in Vienna and not visit a famous Viennese café or a traditional Vienna restaurant to enjoy Viennese cuisine equals a serious sin. The capital city of Austria gets especially beautiful at Christmastime when the city turns into a grandiose Christmas fairytale.

Vienna is one of the most beautiful European capitals.

Cafe imperial vienna