WBC 2012 is upon us! Enjoy this introduction to Viennese cafe culture from Sprudge.com contributor Alex Bernson, and be sure to check out Part 2 of this feature, a guide to 6 excellent cafes in Vienna.ย Follow coverage from the 2012 WBC all week long on Sprudge, or via Twitter @sprudge #WBC2012
โThe Cafรฉ is the perfect place for people who need company to be aloneโ โ Austrian critic Alfred Polgar
Building, pontificating on, and living in cafรฉs is integral to Viennese life. Vienna, along with Paris, was one of the most influential cities in the creation of classic continental cafรฉ culture during 19th and early 20th century and many of the cafรฉs that played a crucial role in that creation still exist in Vienna today, though often in a more tourist-focused incarnation. At the same time, Vienna’s cafรฉ culture and rich design history means some of the most striking and innovative modern cafรฉ designs can be seen in the city. For anyone with an interest in the history of cafรฉ culture, and especially an interest in design, Vienna is a must-visit city. For those lucky enough to be traveling to Vienna for the World Barista Championship, I have put together an introduction to Viennese cafรฉ culture and a guide to noteworthy historic and modern cafรฉs to visit during your stay.
Paris was and is known for its dizzying variety of cafรฉ types that served all parts of societyโfrom the formal grand boulevard cafรฉs; to the more informal, quieter side-street haunts of artists, writers, and bohemians; to the well-worn neighborhood hubs of daily life. Paris innovated many of the now-standard tropes of cafรฉ design and first demonstrated the benefits that a range of cafรฉ styles can give to the public life of a city. Design-wise, Parisian cafรฉs present a diverse selection of more public and more private spatial arrangements and tend to have a very permeable interface with the street characterized by heavy use of open and semi-enclosed sidewalk seating.
In the late 1800s, Vienna took the Parisian cafรฉ style in a more formal and rarefied direction, with its early cafรฉs being much more narrowly focused on the regimented, aristocratic social life of the central city. These cafรฉs were generally designed to be more intimate and have more rigid interfaces between public and private, with the often tuxedo-clad head-waiter serving as a gatekeeper, ushering guests to specific tables based on their social position and reason for visiting.
This is not to say that Viennese cafรฉs were not also the homes of artists and bohemians. While Parisian cafรฉs may have skewed more towards painters, poets and other such artists, Viennese cafรฉs were full of writers, philosophers and students of the social sciences. And to be sure, Viennese cafรฉ culture today is as varied and mainstream a part of everyday life as in Paris or any other great European city, with business people, students, artists, shopkeepers and everyone in-between spending their days and nights in the many various types of cafรฉs to be found in the city.
Beyond excellent design, Viennese cafรฉ culture is well known for its focus on delectable pastries of all sorts and a wide variety of different coffee beverages. Much has been written on the various house specialties of each famous cafรฉ, and I encourage you to research this delightful part of Viennese life. Another commonality in Viennese cafรฉs, at least in the grander establishments, is a rather more stiff, detached, and less subservient approach to service than some, especially Americans, are used to. A holdover from Vienna’s more rigid social history, for me this refusal to fully bow to the whims of tourists is part of Vienna’s charm.
Perhaps the most striking example of Vienna’s commitment to tradition is the fact that you can still smoke inside many cafรฉs. Christoph Grafe, the author of Cafรฉs and Bars: The Architecture of Public Display, once remarked to me that he thought the smoking bans in Paris and Amsterdam are helping usher in the death of classic cafรฉ culture, with the regular habituรฉs of the cafรฉs giving way to ever more tourists. If you feel the need to complain about indoor smoking, please keep in mind that there are many cafรฉs that are smoke-free, or with smoke-free sections, and that most importantly, you are a guest in a city that has been living its life in cafรฉs in the same ways for two hundred years.
Read on here for a guide to cafes in Vienna, plus one unforgettable cocktail bar!
