Goldegg, Bråunerhof, Landtmann and the Fascination of Cafés

The Cafe Goldegg was the meeting place of the resistance during the Nazi period. The stained glass windows, the billiard table, the mirrors, the tables divided by partitions, the old clock, the trunks and stoves, the selection of cakes, including the Esterházy, and above all the presence of many authentic Viennese, together with the exotic green and red dining room and the lush plants that the owner only shows to sympathetic patrons, make it an indispensable afternoon refuge from the cold. The Café Bråunerhof also boasts a regular attendance of enthusiastic regulars, including the writer Thomas Bernhard who, like many, arrived in the afternoon knowing that classical music was being played from 3pm onwards. In contrast, at the Landtmann, you can ask for table 46 or 49, those where Sigmund Freud used to sit, an avid consumer of apple strudel and newspapers, both of which are still very much in demand in this elegant establishment, where the seats repeat the iconographic motif of hollyhocks.