Indulgence with a history
Since 1876, the Café Central in Vienna’s city centre has been more than just a coffee house, becoming a true Viennese institution with plenty of charm and a rich history.
The Café Central is located in the Palais Ferstel on the corner of Herrengasse and Strauchgasse. The palace was designed by the architect of Vienna’s Ring Road, Heinrich von Ferstel, commissioned by the k. k. privilegierte Nationalbank (Privileged National Bank), to serve as a bank and stock exchange building including commercial spaces, executed in the Venetian-Florentine Trecento style. After building was completed in 1860, the Vienna Stock Exchange occupied the ground floor of what was then the most modern building in the city, moving out shortly afterwards, however, due to space related issues. The brothers Gustav and Hermann Pach subsequently opened the Café Central in 1876 in the rooms formerly occupied by the stock exchange. Not least because of the wide range of foreign-language newspapers available there, in the period around the turn of the century, the café was a meeting place for intellectuals and artists: Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler, Robert Musil and Leon Trotsky were regulars, as was the author Peter Altenberg, who actually gave out the Café Central as his home address. The coffee house closed in 1943 after being badly damaged, restoration work only being started in 1975, with the café once again occupying its former place in the pillared hall of the Palais Ferstel from 1986.
Following a comprehensive renovation on its anniversary, the Café Central will soon once again be a popular highlight with visitors from Austria and abroad. Its impressive interior is as much a part of the attraction as the speciality coffees, the fine pastries and classic dishes such as Wiener Schnitzel and Kaiserschmarren.
