Café Central

Café Central opened in 1876 in the Palais Ferstel on Herrengasse and is, with Demel and Sperl, the load-bearing argument for Viennese kaffeehaus culture. Marble columns, vaulted ceilings, the long marble counter with the pastry case at one end and the newspaper rack at the other — Trotsky played chess at the corner table during his Vienna years, Adler and Hofmannsthal wrote here, Lenin sat at the window. The kaffeehaus operates on the form's classic protocol: the Melange or the Einspänner served with a glass of water on a silver tray, a hot meal available all day, and the right to sit with a single coffee and a stack of newspapers for four hours without anyone hurrying you. The pastry — Apfelstrudel, Sachertorte, Kaiserschmarrn — is made on site. The clientele is half tourist, half regular; the regulars are at the back. UNESCO inscribed Viennese kaffeehaus culture on the Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2011 and Central is on every shortlist of the institutions the inscription was protecting.