Coffee in Salzburg

I must admit, I have never previously heard of the writer Friedrich Torberg, but according to the Salzburg Tourism Office, he once proclaimed; "If all the coffeehouses were to close their doors, it would be the end of the world." That is a sentiment I can associate with, and a visit to the four traditional coffee houses in Salzburg was, for me, as much a pilgrimage as a visit to the local two Mozart museums.

Café Tomaselli on Alter Markt is the oldest and most famous of Salzburg’s cafés. It has been in continuous operation since 1703. It has traditionally been popular with musicians and can claim Mozart as a former patron.

Café Fürst has a shorter tradition, but also located on Alter Markt, it makes a nice contrast to Tomaselli. Fürst is in the first instance a Konditorei (confectionary) and the inventor of the famous Mozartkugel pralines. It still makes them manually and wraps them in delightful blue and silver wrappings.

Café Glockenspiel is located on Mozartplatz, arguably the finest square in Salzburg and the one with a large Mozart statue. It is a favored venue to appreciate the three-time daily carillon (Glockenspiel). (The café closed in January 2005 and is due to reopen in mid-2005 under ownership of famed Viennese-court confectionary Demel. It may be necessary to keep an eye on the prices, but it will probably be worth it.)

Café Bazar, in contrast to the other three, is located on the right bank of the Salzach River. It offers river views as well as an unsurpassed view of the baroque old town skyline and the castle. Long popular with actors due to its location close to some of Salzburg’s main theater, it recently added the becks’ family to its long list of appreciative patrons.

Quick Tips:

Salzburg’s cafés have long opening hours. Some open for breakfast as early as 7:30am – about half an hour before I tend to grudgingly open my eyes. Most remain open until around 11pm, and even longer during the high season.

All four of Salzburg’s classical coffee houses are popular with the throngs of tourists that visit Mozart’s birthplace. We visited during the week in late October and were delighted to find the town fairly empty – we never had to wait at any attraction, and finding a table even at Tomaselli was no problem. I have been led to believe this is by no means the case in summer, spring, autumn, or during Advent.

Although all four serve primarily coffee and cakes, small meals are also available. These are mostly bistro-style, although those with café-restaurant in the name may also have more elaborate meals. Food in cafés tends to be pricy, though, and a better value may be found in proper restaurants.

Best Way To Get Around:

Walking is the preferred way of getting around old town Salzburg. Most of the old town is pedestrianized in any case. Parking is very difficult to find, and very pricy even in dedicated parking garages at the edges of the old town area. Most of the old town area is flat, which makes for easy walking. Small shops, baroque buildings, and atmospheric covered passageways provide interesting distractions.

Salzburg’s comprehensive bus system is of limited use to get around in the old town but is, of course, an ideal and cheap way to get from outlying hotels and the station to the old town area. Boat rides are available during the summer months on the Salzach River. Fiaker – a horse-drawn carriage – rides are available from the Dom, but check prices in advance. Even short rides are very expensive.

Café Tomaselli is one of the most famous coffee shops in Austria and can claim to be the oldest one in continuous existence. It opened its doors in 1703 and has been owned by the Tomaselli family since 1852. Mozart drank milk coffee here, and millions of locals and tourists too.

Usually, ordering a breakfast involves wading through a series of options and trying to compare what is offered by the standard, fitness, American, and what-have-not options. In Tomaselli, the process is more involved. Set menus are not available, and you have to order every individual item separately. Composing a breakfast is not too difficult, as the food selection is not particularly vast but offers all that is required from a continental breakfast. In addition to coffee, we ordered five simple bread rolls – going mostly under the name semmel or kaiserbrötchen, depending on where in the German-speaking world you find yourself. Although very popular with children around age one, semmel on its own is rather tasteless, so we also extravagantly ordered two portions of butter and jelly, which goes at 80 cents a go, as well as a portion of smoked ham, which cost a lot more. Despite my observation in San Francisco on the general free availability of jam in American establishments, I must admit that the 80-cent-a-go version actually tasted like apricot and strawberry and not liked colored, jellified sugar.

Our drinks and food arrived soon enough, too. The bread was fresh and tasted great with the butter and jelly. The portion of ham was surprisingly large and garnished only with an odd couple of small gherkin pieces. However, it made up for the simplicity in presentation with an exquisite fullness in taste. The strong coffee was also perfect, without any bitterness.

Café Tomaselli is a traditional café, so we expected prices for food to be high and were not disappointed. As the taste of the food and the setting were great, we did not mind and would gladly eat here again. Before paying, however, we had another display of the waiters’ skill. Remember, every part of the breakfast had to be ordered separately and was priced separately. The café was full, and the waiter never wrote anything down when anyone ordered. When I asked for the bill, he stared at the table while remembering our order – some of the plates have already been cleared, so there were no tips there, and he did not make any notes on the coasters, as is common in many beer gardens. He just added the bill as if the items and totals were written on the table and remembered to add the extra two bread rolls, sans butter, that we ordered after seeing the size of the ham portion.

We found ourselves in Mozartplatz, one of the loveliest squares in Salzburg, when the baby demanded his late-morning meal. Café-Restaurant Glockenspiel was at hand, and as the rest of the becks’ family never needs an excuse to wander into café, we were just too happy to adhere to his wishes.

Café-Restaurant Glockenspiel is apparently one of the most popular cafés in Salzburg. Its location is splendid, with seating on two levels, and in summer, a large veranda with additional seating on the lovely square. As the name suggests, it offers a great location to listen to Salzburg’s famous carillon (Glockenspiel). It consists of 35 bells and has been in operation since the early 18th century. The tunes played are altered every month. We were not there at 7am, 11am, or, indeed, 6pm, so we could concentrate on the coffee and people-watching.

We sat indoors at street level, where the café is split into two rooms. Ours was completely empty except for our foursome. The upstairs rooms were cordoned off, and although there were tables outside, cool, misty weather ensured that these went unused on this particular morning. The main color was red, with upholstered benches following the flow of the wall and Thonet chairs available at the small round or square marble-top tables. While I had to concentrate on feeding the baby, toddler becks got a head start with the chocolate cake and maintained a steady pace to build up an unassailable lead. My judgment of very good for the cake is based on two small bites, which, in a lesser establishment, might have been a single mouthful, but the cappuccino was excellent. My wife was not totally impressed with her cake, but obviously it was not bad enough to leave any for me to try.

While searching the Internet to find the full address of Café-Restaurant Glockenspiel, I was surprised to read that it is being renovated, as I saw little wrong with its interior. However, my mouth started to water when reading that the establishment has been taken over by Demel – one of the classiest confectionaries in Vienna. Demel had been in a long-standing battle, which it eventually lost, with Sacher over the right to call their chocolate cakes the Original Sacher-Torte. (The local Hotel Sacher on the right bank of the Salzach River sells Sacher-Torte in beautiful wooden boxes, and yes, it does taste good.) I know Demel from Tokyo, where the company has a Vienner than Vienna little shop on Omotesando Dori, a 5-minute walk from the apartment I lived in for 4 years, which turned me into an unashamed fan of Sacher-Torte and very strong coffee with Schlagobers. At the time of writing, it was still unclear whether Demel was going to turn the establishment in to a café-restaurant or a coffee shop. Two things are certain: the quality of the cakes will go up, and so will the prices.

Demel in Salzburg? Enough reason to return…

Of the four coffee shops we visited in Salzburg, I liked Café Bazar the most. It is located on the right bank of the Salzach close to the Staatsbrücke making crossing over to the Old Town and Mozart’s Birth House easy. On a sunny day, its large veranda would have offered fantastic views of the Salzburg Baroque skyline and the castle, but on this misty, late-October morning inside seating was the only available option. Its close proximity to the theater has apparently made it popular with theater-goers and actors, while the more famous Café Tomeselli has been the favorite of musicians in centuries past. Previous Café Bazaar patrons included Marlene Dietrich and Louis Armstrong.

Upon entering, we found most patrons to be men in suits seemingly enjoying a coffee and the newspaper en route to the office. One man got up in undue haste as we sat down at the table across from his. He, of course, did not know that toddler becks has been a regular in coffee shops since age two weeks and knows how to behave, or that baby becks, with admittedly only six months of café experience, would go one better and simply doze off after having had his morning porridge. He simply may have been in a genuine hurry. The waitress, however, made us feel welcome and simply oozed the charm and friendly hospitality that Austrians are famous for. The charming interior of this café has all the style and richness of a Viennese establishment.

Café Bazar serves breakfast from 7:30am to around 11am. Three basic options are available but á la carte is also available. We opted for Bazar II – coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice, a selection of bread rolls, marmalades, hams, and cheeses. It was a huge spread and good value at €8.10 per person. It is unfortunate for the waitress that toddler becks does not carry the wallet or determine the size of the tip. Even to the casual observer, the reactions must be obvious of a three-year-old upon receiving her own plate from the waitress from the start of the meal rather than her father’s saucer or having to wait for a requested third plate.

I would love to return to Café Bazar, especially during summer, when the veranda should be open. In addition, the daily changing lunch menus looked like excellent-value bistro-style food at between €6 and €8.

One way or the other, we were always going to end up in Café Fürst. The only surprise was that we only did so on the final morning of our four-day stay in Salzburg.

Although my three-year-old has been falling asleep to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 21 in C (K.467) and even calls out "sleepy time" when hearing the music in public, she thinks Mozart is only half a word. The missing part is Kugeln, German for balls. Mozart Balls are marvelous round chocolates with a pistachio and nougat filling. After Mozart himself, it is probably the most famous export from Salzburg.

Mozartkugeln are not found as such in nature – someone must have thought it up and produced it. It was not the favorite chocolate of the Mozart either, nor of his wife, who apparently had a bit of a sweet tooth. Mozartkugeln were invented in 1890 by Konditorei Fürst. Even today, recipes cannot be copyrighted and back then trademark registration was not as advanced as today where the generally squarish thing in walls that allows light through but keep wind and weather out has been elevated to a very profitable registered trademark. As a result, Mozartkugeln were soon copied and are now made by various manufacturers in the German-speaking world.

Given the amount of advertising that Mirabelle is doing in Salzburg, one would be forgiven for thinking the idea belonged to them. Although Mirabelle’s Kugeln taste just fine, and I often buy them myself, I just had to try the original. In addition, Fürst is one of only two manufacturers who still produce the balls mostly by hand. Fürst’s Kugeln have a slightly thicker chocolate outside, which is harder than that of the competition to give a better balance between the harder shell and the wonderful softer filling. In addition, they are also slightly bigger than the competition. Naturally, they are slightly pricier but not by much and well worth it.

When visiting Café Fürst, we opted to sit almost inside the shop, where a small number of tables was available. A larger café area is deeper inside the building, but this area seemed a bit too smokey, and in any case, being surrounded by chocolates was always going to be the more desirable option. We ordered a standard European breakfast of bread rolls, cheese and jellies, and coffee. Everything tasted great, and service was surprisingly fast and friendly. The toddler even received a Mozartkugel from the staff – presumably for good behavior, which I thought jolly unfair, as I did not shout, run around, or lick my knife either during the meal.

Even without feeling the need to pay homage to Fürst for its major contribution to the gastronomical world, Café Fürst is a very pleasant place. The Konditorei sells a large selection of dainty cakes and pralines but the blue and silver wrapped Mozartkugeln are the natural choice and worth the splurge.