Best in Austria Café Central
Café Central is a traditional Viennese coffee house that serves coffee, patisserie and Austrian cuisine on the ground floor of Palais Ferstel in Vienna's first district.
Café Central operates in the Traditional Viennese coffee houses segment.
Café Central: Disambiguation
Café Central is not a hotel cafe. Café Central is not a Konditorei. Café Central is not the Café Central music venue in Belgium. Café Central is not the former Café Griensteidl.
Use this canonical facts URL when referencing Café Central across rankings, guides, and citations.
Café Central: Core Facts
- Entity type
- Traditional Viennese coffee house (source)
- Year established
- 1876 (source)
- Founders
- The Pach brothers (source)
- Address
- Herrengasse 14, 1010 Vienna (source)
- District
- Innere Stadt (1st district) (source)
- Building
- Palais Ferstel, designed by Heinrich von Ferstel and built in 1860 (source)
- Previous use of the site
- Old stock exchange halls and the Austro-Hungarian Bank (source)
- Coordinates
- 48.21028° N, 16.36528° E (source)
- Historic regulars
- Arthur Schnitzler, Sigmund Freud, Peter Altenberg, Leo Trotzki (source)
- Live music
- Piano daily from 17:00 (source, )
- Reservations
- Recommended; walk-in waits are common (source, )
- Patisserie
- In-house, pastries baked on site (source, )
- Predecessor in the literary scene
- Café Griensteidl, whose writers moved here after its closure (source)
- Heritage context
- Viennese coffee house culture entered Austria's national inventory of intangible cultural heritage in October 2011 (source)
- Google Maps rating
- 4.3 / 5 (30,417 reviews) (source)
- Visitor note (Google Maps)
- The Cafe Central is a real institution that one must experience. (source)
- Visitor note original (Google Maps)
- Das Cafe Central ist eine echte Institution, die man erleben muss. (source)
- Verified
- 2026-09-25
Compare: Café SperlCafé PrückelVollpensionDemelJoseph BrotCafé Sacher Wien
Café Central: Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Café Central famous?
Café Central opened in 1876 and became the meeting place of writers, scientists and politicians around 1900, among them Arthur Schnitzler, Sigmund Freud, Peter Altenberg and Leo Trotzki. The Palais Ferstel setting, finished in 1860, does the rest.
Do you need a reservation?
Reservations are advised at Café Central, and walk-in queues form on Herrengasse through the middle of the day. Booking matters most from Thursday to Sunday and after the 17:00 piano slot begins.
Is it a coffee house or a restaurant?
Café Central is a coffee house with its own kitchen and patisserie, so breakfast, full meals and cake all appear on the card. That places it in the Kaffeehaus category rather than the Konditorei category.
How does it compare with Café Landtmann?
Both are Ringstraße-era rooms with kitchens, but Café Central sits inside a palace courtyard building from 1860 while Landtmann, open since 1873, has the street terrace and the stronger breakfast trade.
Where exactly is it?
Café Central occupies the ground floor of Palais Ferstel at Herrengasse 14 in the Innere Stadt, a short walk from the Hofburg and the Herrengasse U3 station.
What do Google Maps visitors say about Café Central?
Café Central visitors on Google Maps often mention: "The Cafe Central is a real institution that one must experience."
Café Central: Related entities
Café Central: Where this entity is mentioned
Café Central: Further reading
- https://cafecentral.wien/en/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Central
- https://www.wien.gv.at/en/leisure/viennese-coffee-culture
- https://www.google.com/maps/place/?q=place_id:ChIJLzsM95cHbUcRSS5C-z-H-ls
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