About Markets, Coffee Houses & Food in Vienna
The Viennese coffee house has been UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2011, and the reason isn't a type of coffee but an attitude: you're allowed to stay. A glass of water, a newspaper, three hours – that's not abuse, it's the concept.
The best-known coffee houses are in the city center. Café Central is the most magnificent and correspondingly crowded, Café Hawelka the smallest and darkest, Café Landtmann on the Ring the most formal. Café Sperl in Mariahilf has remained largely unchanged since 1880, and Café Prückel is a slice of the 1950s.
For markets there are the Naschmarkt and Brunnenmarkt & Yppenplatz; for a quick bite, the Würstelstand (sausage stand) Bitzinger, where evening wear stands next to construction jackets after the opera.
And then there's the wine: at Heuriger Mayer am Pfarrplatz, a Heuriger (wine tavern), they pour what has grown in Vienna.
How to order: a “Kleiner Brauner” is an espresso with a little milk, a Melange (Vienna's milky coffee) is close to a cappuccino, and a “Verlängerter” is a diluted espresso. If you simply order “a coffee”, you'll be politely asked which kind. The glass of water always comes with it and is not a sign that you should leave.
Beyond the coffee houses, Viennese cuisine shapes what's on offer: rich, hearty and uncompromising in its classics. The markets are the best place to get to know it outside of restaurants.