Die Cafetière, Vienna

Where the coffee is strong and the stories stronger

If cafés had personalities, Die Cafetière would be that effortlessly elegant aunt with a soft spot for proper coffee, a pinch of nostalgia and a refusal to change just because the world says so.

Set along Vienna’s Wipplingerstrasse in the former Naber Kaffee roastery, this mid-century number has been revived with rare restraint by Peggy Strobel, once restaurant manager at Mraz & Sohn and now happily doing her own thing just down the road. Married to chef Markus Mraz, Peggy knows a thing or two about flavour, hospitality and how to keep a room full of regulars happy.

Rather than scrub it clean or turn it into a Pinterest project, she kept the 1960s bones intact. There’s a brass-rimmed coffee bar with a curl to it, cream tiles, dark wood, and a mural on the façade that may or may not pass modern taste tests. But that’s half the joy. It all works because it’s not trying too hard.

On the menu: house-roasted beans, pitch-perfect espresso and toasted sandwiches with names like Karl-Heinz and Gerti, nods to her father-in-law’s legendary hospitality. There are pastries from L’amour du pain and Naschsalon, Viennese iced coffee, and dogs are more than welcome.

This isn’t one of Vienna’s grand café institutions, and thank goodness for that. Die Cafetière is smaller, warmer and far more personal. Come for the coffee, stay for the charm, and don’t be surprised if you find yourself wishing it was just a little closer to home.