Yum Vienna (V3)

Hot raspberry sauce on ice cream - mmm.

Coffee and Cake are the fuel of Vienna. We were only in the city for four whole days and I was determined to sample a wide selection in that time. Luckily there are many, many cafés and restaurants that were quite willing to lend aid to my quest. I think K and the girls were a little nervous about the calories but I reasoned that all the shivering in the snow would soon shake them off!

The Battle of Vienna, way back in 1683, began the city's culinary traditions. While besieged and starving, the Viennese probably dreamed of food. It is funny to imagine that the brilliance of the Austrian general, who kept the population alive and fighting until the Polish reinforcements arrived, was his ability to motivate endurance by holding daily imaginary meals where everybody describes what they would eat that day. Imagine a scribe seriously putting these thoughts onto vellum to be reenacted at the victory banquet once the Turks were routed.  Someone craved bread but enhanced a simple roll with the luxury of extra butter in the dough and then designed a way to roll it out in the form of a crescent - the symbol of Islam that the Turks were fighting under. So satisfying to daily destroy the terror with their teeth. No wonder the Father of Psychoanalysis popped up in a city with a heritage of such strong visualisation skills 200 yrs later.

Battle of Vienna 12.9.1683 in Vienna Museum  Karsplatz  by Franz Geffels (1625-94), c. 1685.        Kipferl in a bakery.

I was gob smacked to find that the croissant was actually invented in Vienna! It was called a kipferl, which is the German word for crescent. There is some discussion among food historians about its arrival in Paris, some say it was a few bakers trying to win Marie Antionette's favour by recreating a food from her homeland but others say it wasn't until the 1830's that an Austrian artillery officer opened a Viennese bakery in Paris. The crescent shaped roll was quickly renamed with the French word for crescent as French bakers copied the popular snack and added more butter to the dough. Even though this is less romantic, it makes more sense. The Austrians, like M, prefer slightly heavier, softer staples like dumplings and soft loaves (just as well for me!) where as the French, like me, prefer their gluten served light and crisp. The delights of a French made baguette,flute or pain de campagne is why I get heavier and softer when we go to France! A restaurant trend here in the UK is to serve burgers on brioché - soft and sweet with under-salted beef patties - ugh.

Left: What to order in Vienna    

Right: A French illustration published in 1693 shows coffee-drinking from a bowl and an ibrik for brewing coffee, as well as a branch of a coffee tree, beans and a cylindrical ‘instrument for roasting the coffee.’ Bridgman Art Library.

The other scoop that the Austrians scored in the victory over the Ottomans, was coffee. The Turks considered coffee an essential part of their rations so bags of the beans were looted from the Turkish tents and steaming bowls of coffee with generous dollops of sweetened whipped cream were added to the banquet. Is it bad that I am glad that the Battle of Vienna happened and has ensured that 21st century travelers can visit a city that has coffee menus as big as their wine list?

The late Saudi King loved these Aida Konditories so much that he 'invited' the franchise to his country where it is said there are as many as in Vienna.
Cream slice (at home in NZ it's called Vienna slice), Raspberry bomb, Biedermeier torte; layers of light and dark sponge with Maraschino liqueur, hazel nuts, nougat cream and homemade cranberry and quince jam. The three on the right weren't available when we tried to order them: top - Mozart cake - with the pistachio and chocolate flavours of the mozartkugel, middle - a Nougat tart that both K and Petal wanted to try and bottom - an apricot torte with nuts in the shortcrust base.

Another difference M and I have about food is that he likes to save the tastiest morsel till last whereas I tend to gobble it down piping hot as so as it arrives. This actually caused quite a bit a tension in the early days of our relationship. One day when M had risen from the table and I thought he had finished I ate the tasty morsel before clearing the table - I learnt not to do that again! True to form I bullied our itinerary into visiting the legendary Sacher Hotel to sample the iconic Sacher Torte on the first day!  I would rather recreate happy memories than spend the days worrying that I may miss an experience. Although you can now have this cake anywhere in the world by ordering it online (€28 http://www.sacher.com/ ) part of this cake's mystic is the surrounds that is is served in.

We queued at the Sacher Hotel for about 20mins - getting colder and colder, to get a table. After it was our turn to be let in, we handed our coats to the friendly garderoben, who for €1 each hung and guarded them during our stay, and our fingers began to thaw out. After ensuring that Willow would share some of her torte with me and that M was ordering apple strudel, I ordered the cheese strudel and a Viennese coffee! The room was gorgeous - just what makes an olde world afternoon tea perfect.

Once upon a time a powerful Prince (Metternich, 1832) ordered that a special dessert be offered to his important guests the following day. The head chef had taken ill so the command weighed upon the shoulders of a young apprentice, Franz Sacher. Imagine the frenzied pantry inspection. Up until  this point European cakes were usually full of nuts and fruit with heavy layers, the earliest known recipe for the Schwarzwälder kirschtorte (Black Forest Torte) with its similarly light chocolate sponge is 1915. The young chef decided to risk making something no one had seen before. Brave or stupid - his success means history reveres his nerves of steel. Stiff egg whites, half the yolks, double ground almonds, apricot preserves, apricot brandy, flour, butter, a little sugar plus the vital bitter chocolate and Unglaublich, (amazing) a triumph! Two chocolate sponges sandwiched and covered with an apricot glaze which sets before a heavy blanket of chocolate icing (boiled sugar with the chocolate melted into it off the heat) sets on top of that. Years of fighting for his rights of the recipe ownership finally saw Franz's offspring serve 'The original' Sacher Torte at their Sacher Hotel. Other cafe's were told by the courts that they had to drop the 'original' from the name of their Sacher tortes.  Franz's recipe is still a closely guarded secret.

So much coffee but they also have teas and hot chocolates at the Mozart Café.

Before the watching the Spanish horses doing their morning exercises we dropped into Café Mozart opposite the information center and behind the Opera on Albertinaplatz. It looked a bit posh but we only wanted coffees and hot chocolates - just as well, the prices were a bit posh too! They had a beautiful interior, the very enthusiastic waiter seated us around a corner where two tables could be messily pushed together for our party of six.

The Mozart Cafe was named for the statue that used to stand out the front but was moved to a park on the Ringstrasse.

On Stephanzplatz opposite Haas Haus. I didn't notice there was a Macdonalds there until looking back at this photo.

If you do have a few mouths and a limited budget the Austrian konditories franchise  - Aida, has a large presence. Each slice of cake is around the €3 mark and they have a very big selection. The cakes are baked at a factory, sliced, wrapped and delivered to each cafe every morning. After our visit to Stephansdom we spotted the one on the square and found tables upstairs. Willow, Petal and M sat at the cake bar and confused the waiters no end when we put our whole order on the same bill. K,C and I sat next to windows that looked out over the platz -a view is always my preference if available. The girls thought the hot chocolates tasted a bit strange but the cakes were just as yummy as the handmade ones. The photos below are from a couple of stops at different stores.  I did get some strange looks from waiters as I had two selections delivered each time. We shared around!

Left:  Last night on our waiting to cross at the lights beside the Ringstrasse on the way to the Karlplatz u-bann station.
Right : K's cream free traditional hazelnut square and a bit of black forest torte for C.

Upstairs at Stephansplatz Aida Left:cake counter, menu,  Right: My latte and double order - the blueberry cake was delish.

After standing and watching the horses for 2hrs we were quite tired and decided to treat ourselves to a proper hot dinner at a traditional Viennese restaurant. We found Kanzleramt just around the corner from Michaelerplatz on Schauflerg. After our Cafe Mozart experience I asked to see a menu before committing to being seated but told the guy we just wanted to make sure that Wiener Schnitzel was available. The family - who knew what I was really about - checking prices, were rolling their eyes.  The waiter was sweetness itself and made us feel right at home when we agreed to stay. Our coats weren't taken so our seats became comfortably padded.

A traditional Austrian restaurant with Viennese specialties on the menu, a wonderful find close to the Riding school.

The waiter gave us some great advice on what and how much to order when he discovered we wanted to sample some traditional dishes. First we ordered soups. The waiter suggested to order one between two because they were big serves.  Griessnockerlsuppe is a beef broth with a semolina dumpling in it, the semolina wasn't available so a couple of serves with cheese dumplings (Kaspressknodel) and one with pancake strips(Frittatensuppe) were ordered. The mains were quite hard to choose because there were so many interesting choices. Luckily the waiter was able to give us a menu in English, I find it a lot harder deciphering German than French although schwein is an easy one - oink, oink.

Maincourse Menu

The girls all decided to have chicken schnitzel which was served with parsley potatoes, that tasted like they'd been left to soak in warm butter for half an hour and a wedge of lemon. The adults all decided to have Tafelspitz which the waiter insisted was the most traditional Vienna meal.  It is slices of a beef topside cut that has been simmered all day and night, according to our enthusiastic waiter, in a rich vegetable and beef stock. They have to have super sharp knives to be able to cut the cm thick slices off the meat because it truly pulls away from your fork as soft as warm butter. It was served with vegies from the broth and a apple and horseradish sauce which the girls also enjoyed on their schnitzels. There were quite a few hungarian dishes on the menu for people with really big appetites, perhaps this was Sisi's influence all those years ago. A lovely meal in a wonderfully cosy and welcoming establishment. No dessert of course - more cake later!

From the top left then clockwise: pancake broth, cheese dumpling broth, a local favourite grape juice, Chicken schnitzel, Tafelspitz with fried potatoes and sauce.

A large group of Italians left just before us and one gentleman forgot to pick up his scarf. M was the first into his outdoor gear so went to wait outside - you get uncomfortably hot in a normal temperature area with layers of winter gear on. He found the Italians still chatting by the restaurant door so in his fluent Italian tried to explain about the forgotten scarf.  One lady thought he had made a comment about his own scarf (their English was as good as his Italian) and patted it in a congratulatory manner saying 'Si bella!', It was very kind of her to agree with a stranger's assertions about the beauty of their clothing choices but didn't help the guy who had left his scarf behind. Eventually M approached the only person without a scarf and with international hand gestures pointed to his own scarf, then the gentiluomo's neck then at the restaurant.  At last light dawned on the uomo's face and we saw him come in to retrieve it as we were leaving.

Top left: waiting for the Yellow Ring Tram,  Top Right: Waiting for the green man to let us cross the Danube canal to get to the U-bann station.      Bottom: Big risk throwing a snow ball at your Dad Willow!

An icicle dropped from a roof gutter onto Willow
- thank goodness for a big pompom

Walking around Vienna with the help of the U-bann every now and then was made even more calorific by the cold, snow lay fairly deep and fell often enough for Willow to say "the only way I can cope with this bone aching chill is knowing that something beautiful comes with it." She did feel a lot better after buying a new hat that didn't have any 'airholes' at a stall in front of the Rathaus as they set up for a big New Years concert.

On the last day we decided to try and find a normal (unsouvenired) shopping area for the girls to spend some of their Chirstmas Euros. we discovered that Austria doesn't have a large manufacturing tradition so there were no outlet type places. We could have taken the U-bann to outer suburbs to a couple of big malls but after K tapped into trip advisor and a couple of forums she found out that Mariahilfer Strasse had large swathes of pedestrian only areas and was considered a retail hub of down town Vienna.  This area was just behind the Museum Quarter so we walked to the Ubann behind the Rathaus and eventually exited at Neubagasse. After deciding not to go into the Lantmann Café for lunch we had gotten pretty hungry so stopped in at the first place that had enough seating for us, a little sandwich bar called 'backwerk', We think this must be a German interpretation of Back to Work because all the food was prepared ready to be picked up and paid for, much like the cafés in NZ. The fresh salad rolls and spinach and curd pastries were delicious.

Backwerk - do the doughnuts and white choc raspberry pastries get added to the cake count?

It seems that many tourists think they will see kangaroos in Austria

Feeling full and satisfied we headed off to see if there were any different chain stores in Vienna. The holiday sales were still on everywhere so Petal wanted to pop into New Yorker, Willow loved Tally Weijl and I was pleased that the sale discounts were very generous! M got fairly bored and cold waiting outside forever so he went his own way and managed to find a hardware store and a knife shop where he found a splinter remover he thought would be handy to have. We looked and shopped until our bladders couldn't be trusted, I rang M to see where he was and luckily he was able to locate some public loos in a department store close to where we were.  Thank goodness for Google and Life 360 on his phone. After popping into a C&A clothing department store we found what we needed and headed back out.

Top left - a VERY expensive hat, glove and scarf shop!  Top Right: A Christmas tree of bauble earrings with some Klimt prints in the background - any size available.      Below: Mariahilfer Strauss

Our last foodie stop before hitting our loved Billa supermarket to restock up on Viennese confection, was a late afternoon tea at a store that made huge ice cream Sundaes on Mariahilferstrasse.  There are three Paoblo Bortolotti Cafés down this street. K and I stuck to cake to get our day's quota but the others couldn't resist the ice cream, even though it was only getting colder outside!

The adult's treats at Bortolotti

The young one's Sundaes.  I wasn't organised to get a photo of C's before she'd finished but it looked like brochure pic right.

Two sweet treats that are synonymous with Austria are the bright pink branded Manner wafers and the Mozartkugel. The big flagship stores in town were always full of people so we just got ours at the supermarket. The prices were the same but the big stores had a wider range of products.

Everywhere in Austria.

There are so many famous Kaffeehaus and Konditories(cake and confection shops) in Old Vienna, we didn't manage to sample many of them though. Turns out having cake every day for lunch is quite a task! I need to go back again to do a serious café crawl with no art or history distractions - mind you most of the cafes have both history and art connected with them so perhaps I don't need to go without.  Any one care to come?

A little list of ones we walked past and peered into but didn't sample are below.

Demel - Sisi (Empress Elizabeth) used to have candied violets delivered to her from the court confectioners at Demel when in residence at the Hofburg. The Demel kitchen was part of the Hofburg complex (Imperial Palace). It is where Franz Sacher first cooked his torte that the cafe has been making it ever since. They lost the right to use the word 'Original' after Franz fought for copyright of the recipe.

Café Central is considered to be one of the first Kaffeehaus in Vienna, it closed after WWII for a while but was reopened and refurbished in 1986.

Café Hawelka its walls are covered in paintings from the Viennese school of Realism. Their Buchtein (jam doughnuts) are apparently renowned.

Cafe Landtmann - we passed this walking from Beethoven's house to the Burgtheatre. We thought about going to have lunch there but it looked a bit expensive. Checking later I found that soup and a maincourse were only €12,50 - should have popped our heads in after all. We found that many of the food places didn't list their prices on outside menus - once you've sat down it is a bit embarrassing when you realise it really doesn't fit in your budget.

Café Griensteds is opposite the Spanish riding school on Micheleplatz

Cafe Museum has a very confusing name.  It is not a museum, opposite a museum or even in the Museum Quarter.  Its interior was designed by architect Adolf Loos so perhaps some think the building should be in a museum?

Scanned from a book I bought 'A taste of Austria' by Escudo De Oro, It even has mum's beef roulade recipe in it which I never knew was from Austria.