The "Modern" Viennese Coffee House

The plush and sleek interior of Cafe Museum featuring Julius Meinel coffee. 

Considered a "modern" cafe at the time of its inception (in 1899), Cafe Museum, was frequented by the likes of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and a plethora other artists and authors who I do not recognize...well at least I managed to pick up two people through my classes in Prague :) We made a quick stop here on our way to the famous Viennese "Naschmarkt" Saturday morning. Plush red booths, marble tables and waiters dressed in black vests and bow ties. Most of the patrons's faces were completely obscured by the massive newspapers they were reading supplied by the cafe. Too bad we can't read German otherwise it would have been the ultimate authentic cafe experience.

An overflowing cup of hot chocolate. 

And then there was the Sachertorte, a famous chocolate cake founded by the 16-year old baker apprentice, Franz Sacher.  Not too shabby getting an internationally acclaimed cake named after yourself at that age. [According to Wikipedia], an authentic Sachertorte is only made in Vienna (the city of its founding) and Salsburg. Obviously, we were going to have ourselves some sachertorte.

+ An authentic serving of sachertorte
Two layers of spongy chocolate cake with a layer of apricot jam in the middle, covered in dark chocolate icing, and served with a BIG serving of unsweetened whipped cream

Cafe au lait (?) served with an obligatory side of cold water. At first we could not figure out for the life of us what the water was for...turns out its just for drinking. Apparently in cafe culture, it is customary to serve water with your coffee. Rather convenient. 

This was actually not our first cafe experience as we visited Cafe Central on the first night, but after these two experiences, we were hooked on European coffee houses and went to both Cafe Savoy and Cafe Lourve in Prague multiple times.