Cafes of Vienna: Cafe Schwarzenberg - Some Things Are Better in the Past

Cafe Schwarzenberg was once amongst my favourite coffee houses in Vienna, but that was more than fifteen years ago. I used to be very fascinated by the splendor of its decor, the spirit of its grandiose ambience, as well as its palacial elegance, smooth coffee, and heavenly cakes. But how things haved changed since the early 1990s!!

During my latest visit to Vienna, I made it a priority to visit Cafe Schwarzenberg in the hope of reliving that heavenly hazelnut cream with chocolate cake again. But to my utter disappointment, the whole place has become a mega touristic magnet now. Virtually more than half of the people sitting inside speak no German at all, many of them are obviously first-time foreign tourists to Vienna, who choose to come to Cafe Schwarzenberg because their guidebooks told them to do so.

Some people said that things always seem to taste better/feel better in the past. It was exactly how I feel in the case of Cafe Schwarzenberg. In my memories, this place used to serve some of the most heavenly cakes I have ever tasted in my life. They used to have at least a dozen different types of cakes available in their display case to choose from. But this time, the variety of cakes available in the glass cabinet are not as enticing as in the past, and the quality of the Earl Grey tea I ordered was only slightly better than plain hot water. Yes, I know I am difficult to please, but what really annoys me is that I cannot even finish reading my newspapers in peace.  As the queue outside the door becomes longer, I felt obliged to finish up my tea as soon as possible, in order to make way for incoming customers. As the clock struck 3 in the afternoon, the situation became critical. Whatever tables vacated by customers were immediately occupied, either by new customers who had been waiting at the door, or made out of bound by waiters with a 'Reserved' sign on the table. When I asked the waiter if I could move to a seat next to the window after a group of young Americans had vacated their table, I was told that the place had long been reserved by the concierge of a five-star hotel nearby for their guests. Apparently all indoor seats had been reserved by then. I was told that between 3 and 6 in the afternoon, it is almost imperative to call the cafe in advance for a reservation, if you do not want to spend valuable time waiting at the door for a table.

By 4 o'clock, the whole cafe felt like a busy Arab bazaar full of tourists with track shoes, T-shirts and Gore-Tex jackets. There was neither much cultural flaire, nor the sophisticated yet relaxed atmosphere worthy of a quintessential Viennese cafe. The whole place has more similarity to the boutiques of Milan during the annual winter and summer sales, when all corners of the shop were crammed with over-zealous shoppers and pushy bargain hunters eager to lay their hands on the sales merchandise.

I sipped my tea in the midst of all the noise and the crowd, and try to contemplate that heavenly cake I used to enjoy fifteen years ago. So much for Cafe Schwarzenberg. As the saying goes, things always feel better when they exist only in past memories. What a pity the place has lost its originality and that sense of exclusive elegance and elite charm. Nowadays it has become just one of those big-name cafes in Vienna that offers expensive food and drinks but imparts very little in terms of flaire or atmosphere. Although Cafe Schwarzenber is still miles better when compared to over-priced tourist haunts known as Cafe Central and Cafe Landtmann, it is advisable for anyone new to Vienna's cafe scene to visit Cafe Schwarzenberg well after the afternoon rush hours between 3-6, so that you can truly enjoy that genuine Viennese cafe experience amid all that glamorous settings.

Café Schwarzenberg
Kärntner Ring 17
1010 Wien

Copyrights@2011. All text and photos by YC Cheng. All Rights Reserved.