Sweet Vienna

For centuries, Vienna’s bakers have catered to the city’s legendary sweet tooth, establishing a culinary tradition that began with a simple medieval gingerbread and continues today in the rich creations of the Konditoreien, or pastry shops, for which the city is justly renowned.

Austria’s monarchy set a fine example for the citizenry in its own consumption of sweets. From the mid-19th century through the end of World War I, 58 firms throughout Europe (17 of which were Viennese) held the Habsburgs’ royal warrant as purveyors of cakes, chocolates and other sugar wares to the Imperial Court.

Personally, I have never needed such encouragement . . . royal or otherwise. From the first moment, 13 years ago, when I walked into Demel’s gilt-trimmed interior and gazed upon its gorgeous bounty of layer cakes, strudel, pastries and chocolates, I became a devotee, a frequent worshiper at this shrine of sweets. But Demel’s (formally known as Ch. Demel’s Sohne, or Christoph Demel’s Sons) appealed at least as much to my eyes as to my palate, its marble counters of cakes arranged with the care a painter might bestow on the objects of a still-life.

Ever since, a visit to Vienna is inconceivable without at least a daily stop at a Konditorei for a slice of, say, Topfenstrudel (cheese strudel) accompanied by strong and exemplary coffee. Even if I suffer after a few days from a surfeit of sweets, I will sit in Lehmann or Gerstner or Sluka with a cup of plain tea and spend a satisfying hour observing the styles--and occasionally the manners--of the other patrons.

Thus, my appreciation of Vienna’s pastry shops does not begin and end with tastes and smells. They are great places to observe humanity that also happen to have a place in our family history. My Viennese in-laws and many of their relatives and friends conducted their courtships in the city’s Konditoreien. Linzertorte and love: It makes sense to me.

On my most recent trip this summer, I paid homage to several of the best known and loved, among the scores of Vienna’s pastry shops. As always, I began on the Philharmonikerstrasse, across from the Staatsoper (the State Opera House), in the Sacher Cafe of the Hotel Sacher. The cafe is not, strictly speaking, a Konditorei, but it is home to the most famous of all Viennese cakes. Yet while every pastry shop throughout Austria and beyond whips up its own version of this plain yet classic cake, only the Hotel Sacher has the right, won in the courts during the Seven Year Sweet War of the 1950s, to call its cake Original Sacher Torte.

This is a cake with a creation story, one version of which is that it was born in 1832 when a 16-year-old cook’s apprentice named Franz Sacher came up with the recipe during an emergency. The chef in service to Prince Metternich fell ill, the prince wanted a dessert to impress his guests and the boy came through with this rich yet not-too-sweet confection.

The elegant interior of the Sacher Cafe, with its red walls, gilt mirrors and twin portraits of Empress Elisabeth (known familiarly as Sissi) and Franz Joseph, is unexpectedly inviting--cozy, even. My husband, GJ, and I invited some Viennese cousins and an American friend to join us, and we took up residence for an afternoon, chatting and sipping coffee. My friend and I ordered the Sacher Torte. Our local cousins declined. “I’ve never understood all the fuss,” one of them said, shaking her head.

I admit it is not my favorite cake, but I had in mind to perform a little test. Today I would sample the Original Sacher Torte and tomorrow the version served at Demel’s, the archenemy of Sacher during the Sweet War. And so I examined and savored the cake with more than usual care and found it delicious. The two layers are not intensely chocolaty and indeed a bit dry, a frequent complaint. Between them is a thin layer of apricot jam, and the entire cake is coated with semisweet chocolate icing. One slice of none-too-generous proportions, topped with a round chocolate seal of authenticity, costs about $5. It comes, however, accompanied by a swirl of unsweetened whipped cream, Schlagobers, for which most pastry shops charge extra, but which aficionados claim is essential to the proper enjoyment of a Sacher Torte.

*

Demel’s Sohne is only a short and pleasant walk from the Sacher Cafe. Considered by many to be the ultimate Viennese pastry shop, it is also the oldest, having opened in 1786 as the Court Theatre Confectionery. Demel’s has been at its present location at 14 Kohlmarkt since 1888, and much of the interior has retained its original decoration. The array of handmade chocolates, pastries and cakes is displayed on massive marble-topped mahogany counters polished to a high gleam.

At 11 a.m. on a fine morning last July, I selected a Sacher Torte--purely in the interest of research, for I do not ordinarily consume cake so early in the day. I prefer to wait until Jause, the Viennese equivalent of afternoon tea. But tables at Demel’s or at any of the best known Konditoreien, are scarce at Jause. Demel’s in late morning is uncrowded, good time for a leisurely visit.

My slice of Demel’s Sacher Torte arrived, unadorned by whipped cream but slightly less expensive (about $4.60) than at the Sacher Cafe. Like the Original Sacher Torte, this portion also sports a seal, a chocolate triangle stamped with the shop’s legend. The cake is not split into layers. Its top is brushed with apricot jam before the bittersweet chocolate icing is applied. But this structural difference cannot account, at least to my mind and palate, for the subtle difference in taste. Certainly the icing seemed sweeter and more sugary to me than that of the Original Sacher Torte.

According to Demel’s management, however, the recipe for the two cakes is identical and the only difference between them is the assembly. Demel’s claimed during the celebrated court case that because a Sacher heir sold the recipe to Anna Demel, overseer of the family business (1917-1956), it has the exclusive right to call its cake authentic. After years in the courts, the war came to a not entirely satisfying conclusion for either party: The verdict allowed Sacher to call its cake “Original,” but also permitted Demel’s to claim its cake’s authentic provenance as the “Eduard Sacher Torte” (after a Sacher descendant). As recently as 1993 the two firms were still litigating the matter.

Setting aside arcane legal issues, one can see and taste that Demel’s is really all about the art of fine pastry making. Many of the 19th century recipes of master chef Christoph Demel are still employed and margarine is never used.

*

And so when I returned a few days later for Jause, I faced the familiar dilemma of having to choose from among so many worthy candidates--60, to be precise. Would it be a glistening strawberry tart, Nusstorte rich with hazelnuts, a delicate Cremeschnitte or a vanilla-scented slice of Gugelhupf? I asked Demel’s manager Martina Schneider for help. She suggested I try the Annatorte or the Potize, both house specialties, although she admitted she rarely tasted the Annatorte herself because it is so rich.

GJ and I ordered a slice of each and traded bites. A coffeecake--although that homely term doesn’t do it justice--made from yeast dough risen and baked in a Gugelhupf or bundt mold, the walnut Potize came in a giant slice. Swollen with walnuts, redolent of cinnamon, this cake is quite delicious and made a reasonable morning choice.

These days, our Viennese cousins largely forgo Demel’s, except to buy an occasional holiday treat such as a Stollen. “Too many tourists,” they tell us, and indeed looking around on recent visits we see and hear many non-German speakers, guidebooks on their laps, happily consuming pastries.

On the whole I find the smaller, quieter shops such as Sluka, Lehmann and Heiner more to my liking. A visit to each confirmed my idea of what pastry shop loitering ought to be like and probably was in GJ’s grandmothers’ day.

On a drizzly afternoon, GJ and I sat comfortably in Sluka’s mauve and cream-colored interior. The few muted conversations did not disturb the many newspaper-reading patrons who were clearly regulars. We joined this quiet community for an hour, recharging our batteries, sipping excellent coffee and savoring our selections. Sluka’s long glass display case offered many temptations. GJ chose the apricot-poppy seed cake, an unusual and delicious assembly of cheese and poppy layers and fresh apricots. I opted for a raspberry tart, the best fruit tart I encountered during our Konditorei research: a generous handful of unblemished red raspberries mounded over pink pastry cream nestled in a crisp shell.

The following morning we paid our respects to Konditorei Lehmann. The bright sunny day lured most patrons onto the shop’s outdoor terrace on the traffic-free walking street, Graben, and so we had a corner of the dark wood-paneled interior to ourselves. My father-in-law, Ludwig, is particularly fond of Lehmann, I suspect in part because its decor is less feminine than that of many Konditoreien, without a hint of pink or powder blue. I also suspect he took his dates here during the ‘30s, although he claims he doesn’t remember.

Lehmann’s location in the heart of Vienna, half a block from St. Stephen’s cathedral (Stephansdom), attracts a varied clientele of tourists, young professionals from surrounding shops and offices and regulars. A family-owned business since 1878, Lehmann was once especially noteworthy for its fruit conserves. It now produces about 300 cakes per day of between 20 and 30 different types.

Leaving Lehmann full to cake capacity, we nonetheless dropped into the nearby Konditorei Gerstner on the Karntnerstrasse pedestrian street just to have an anticipatory peek at its display. Established in 1847, Gerstner has evolved and expanded from pastry shop to caterers to full-service restaurant, its popularity supported, in earlier times, by the Habsburgs. These days, Gerstner caters Vienna’s premier social event, the annual Opera Ball, as well as a weekly Thursday evening buffet aptly called Kunst und Genuss (Art and Enjoyment), a connoisseur’s delight in an incomparable setting of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, on the Ringstrasse.

We invited cousin Gretl to join us on another afternoon at Gerstner. If ever I took up long-term residence in Vienna, I would give Gerstner first crack as my regular pastry shop. Its sour cherry strudel rivaled Sluka’s raspberry tart in my affection, and GJ raved about the Apfelmohnkuchen with its substantial layers of apple and poppy seeds nestled under a tender crust.

As always when I visit with GJ’s cousins, I ask them for Konditorei stories. Sitting with us in Gerstner’s, Gretl told me she had her first date, at age 16, at Konditorei Heiner. Too shy to order a cake, she remembered sipping a Himbeersoda, a delicious concoction of soda water and raspberry syrup. I was a little disappointed about the cake.

*

I was not disappointed to have yet another reason to revisit Heiner, located on Wollzeile, a narrow street in the St. Stephen neighborhood. Like Sluka and Lehmann, Heiner retains a loyal clientele that seeks the subdued warmth of its clubby atmosphere, a place where they might seek solitude in company. Their Baumkuchenschnitte is a dense slab of lemon-accented cake that does indeed resemble a cross-section of a log, as the name suggests. GJ selects the Wienermadeltorte, a pretty yellow-colored but too sweet (for me) confection of white chocolate and liqueur. Heiner also makes its own marzipan, chocolates and marmalades.

There was one final stop to be made in our pastry exploration. On a solo trip the year before, GJ had brought home a magnificent consolation prize, an Imperialtorte from the Hotel Imperial on the Karntnerring. This trip I wanted to sample a piece on site, in the Cafe Imperial itself.

Like its rival, the Hotel Sacher, the Hotel Imperial is a luxury establishment with a colorful past and a famous cake. The Imperialtorte cannot claim as great an age as the Original Sacher Torte (it was not invented until 1873) but it too has a creation story. According to legend, a baker’s apprentice invented the cake on the eve of the hotel’s opening, a gala occasion attended by the Emperor Franz Joseph himself. The cake appeared among the other delectables, the Emperor selected it, asked for more and 123 years later, it is shipped around the world in pretty wooden boxes.

But even without its splendid cake, the Cafe Imperial has earned a place in Vienna’s cultural and intellectual history. Among its former patrons were the writers Schnitzler, Kraus, Altenberg, Rilke and Hofmannsthal, and the composers Wagner, Mahler, Bruckner (who ordered double portions of Gugelhupf) and Brahms. Sigmund Freud dropped in, as did Leo Trotsky. All proving, of course, that in Vienna one can have her cake and culture too.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GUIDEBOOK

Pastry Places

Getting there: Lufthansa, Delta, KLM, Air France, United, British Airways and Northwest fly between LAX and Vienna, with one change of planes. Advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at about $1,060.

Where to stay: Hotel Sacher, Philharmonikerstrasse 4. Rates: about $390 per night for a double room; telephone 011-43-1-51456 or (800) 223-6800.

Hotel Imperial, Karntnerring 16, Rates: $570 to $770 per night for a double; tel. 011-43-1-501-10313 or (800) 325-3535.

Zur Wiener Staatsoper, Krugerstrasee 11. a Rates: $145 per night for a double; tel. 011-43-1-513-1274.

Vienna’s pastry shops: Cafe Gerstner in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Burgring 5; tel. 526-1361.

Cafe Imperial, Karntnerring 16; tel. 501-10389.

Cafe-Konditorei Gerstner, Karntnerstrasse 11-15. tel. 512-4963.

Kaffee-Konditorei Lehmann, Graben 12; tel. 512-1815.

Cafe-Konditorei L. Heiner, Wollzeile 9; tel. 512-2343. At Karntnerstrasse 21-23. tel. 512-6863.

Demel’s Sohne, Kohlmarkt 14; tel. 535-1717.

Konditorei Sluka, Rathausplatz 8; tel. 405-7172.

Kunst und Genuss buffet, Burgring 5. tel. 512-4963 for reservations.

Sacher Cafe, Philharmonikerstrasse 4. tel. 512-1487.

Pastry prices: Layer cake (Torten) are generally the most expensive sweets at any pastry shop, typically ranging from $3.50 to $5 per slice. A slice of apple, cheese or poppy seed Strudel costs between $3 and $4.50, and Schnecken (Danish-like pastries) or Kipferln (nut-filled crescents) cost between $2 and $3.50.

For more information: Austrian National Tourist Office, P.O. Box 491938, Los Angeles 90049; tel. (310) 478-8306.