Café Frauenhuber on Himmelpfortgasse
Why is it significant?
Walk along the narrow Himmelpfortgasse, the Gate of Heaven Lane, named after a medieval convent that once stood here, and look for the red velvet benches behind the windows of Café Frauenhuber. It is often called the oldest coffee house in Vienna still in business, serving coffee since around 1824.
Key Facts
| Place | Café Frauenhuber on Himmelpfortgasse |
|---|---|
| Address | Himmelpfortgasse 6, 1010 Wien, Austria |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.20570, 16.37230 |
| Part of Walk | Melange, Torte and Schnitzel: Vienna's Coffee Houses and the Naschmarkt |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk along the narrow Himmelpfortgasse, the Gate of Heaven Lane, named after a medieval convent that once stood here, and look for the red velvet benches behind the windows of Café Frauenhuber. It is often called the oldest coffee house in Vienna still in business, serving coffee since around 1824.
The rooms are older than the café. In the late eighteenth century the house held a fashionable restaurant, and the house tradition says that both Mozart and Beethoven performed here. Like many Viennese traditions, it is lovingly repeated and hard to pin down. The name came later, from Anton Frauenhuber, who took over the café in 1891.
So this is a good moment to learn the language. A Melange is coffee with steamed milk and foam. A kleiner Brauner is a small black coffee with a splash of milk. An Einspänner is a strong coffee in a glass under a hat of whipped cream, named after the one-horse carriages whose drivers supposedly drank it with one hand. A Verlängerter is an espresso stretched with hot water. And whatever you order, it should arrive on a small silver tray with a glass of water.
The water is a quiet message. It tells you that you are welcome to stay. A good waiter, the Herr Ober, will refill it without asking, and the newspapers on their wooden holders are free to read. Next door, at number eight, stands the winter palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy, the general who fought the Ottomans after 1683, now home to Austria's Ministry of Finance.
There is something very Viennese about a café sitting quietly beside a baroque war hero's palace, outliving almost everyone. Now walk back to the Kärntner Straße and continue south towards the Opera, then turn right behind it. There, a hotel guards the most famous cake recipe in the world.