Editor Pick
Café Hawelka
Cafe Hawelka is little short of legendary among the traditional coffee houses of Vienna.
Before I went there I’d read about Leopold and Josephine Hawelka and how they ran their café together for 66 years until Josephine passed away at the age of 92. Josephine was said to be particularly proud of the marriages that she’d helped bring about by sitting lone patrons of opposite genders at the same table. I’d read that Leopold still spends time in the cafe, even occasionally posing for photographs with tourists bold enough to ask. He wasn’t there when I visited, but after 70-odd years he deserves as much time off as he wants.
I was expecting lots of old wooden furniture, darkened through years of use, and a careworn but elegant suggestion of gentlemanly decades long past. And that was pretty much what I found. The first thing you see upon entry is a table with about a dozen newspapers on racks, and behind that the café spreads out with marble-topped tables, wooden chairs and antique sofas with deep red striped upholstery. Some of the sofas are arranged to make four booths under the windows and these seemed to be the most sought after seats. I took a small round table along the side wall that was covered in posters for concerts, exhibitions and other cultural events. The main thing that surprised me about the cafe was that there was much less cigarette smoke than I was expecting (for me, a positive).
The tuxedo-clad waiter was very good at his job. In my case he allowed me just long enough to decide what I wanted and was just as timely in delivering it to the table. When I pulled out a pen and paper and started to write he graciously leaned over and flicked on the overhead light that I hadn’t noticed on the wall above. He was equally welcoming to everybody, whether they were regulars in suits and ties or scruffy out-of-town types in jeans, hiking-boots and odd socks.
Being just a few steps along a side street leading from Stephansplatz (the main square at the centre of the old town), Café Hawelka couldn’t have been easier to find. Given the central location and their enormous reputation, it’s actually quite remarkable that it retains the feel of being an authentic locals’ place. While I was there, I was snapping photos (discreetly I hope) and gazing around and there were several other people who obviously weren’t natives of Vienna who were doing the same thing, but we were in the minority. Most of the patrons seemed like regular coffeehouse-goers, following a tradition no doubt enjoyed by their parents and grandparents before them. Ernst Fuchs and Friedensreich Hundertwasser are said to have been among the café’s regulars and it’s not hard to imagine the same café existing back in the 1930s.
And what a glorious time that must have been if the Hawelka is anything to go by!
From journal Ein grosser Brauner, Bitte