A peaceful cafe to take a break after walking around some fairly frenetic Hofburg Palace museums filled with crowds.
Located within the Dorotheum auction house, it was a pleasant experience to explore the three floors of holdings and view some of the pieces available for retail purchase. The cafe is a little hidden considering it's not explicitly advertised outside, you have to go upstairs to the second floor and follow the signs.
There's two sections of seating; one part is on an open upper balcony level that overlooks some antique furniture available for purchase, this is mostly for light desserts. The main seating is within a specific restaurant corner of the building, and seats about 40-50 people, mostly at tables of 2 or 4. Atmosphere feels kinda like you're eating in a museum or library, there were conversations going on though they felt a bit muted by the formality of the auction house setting.
There's a coffee bar and ordering counter where you can place orders to go, you can also sit and eat in for a full service experience. Will mention this is certainly a cafe meaning the menu is comprised of mostly coffee and tea drinks, desserts and snacks, maybe a single page of items that could be considered a light lunch.
My friend and I originally ordered cold drinks an iced latte €5.20? and a bottled green smoothie €5.90, and then got a piece of Gugelhupf (marble bundt cake) €3.10 and Topfenkugel (cheese strudel) $4.60. Drinks were pretty standard, the cakes were pretty decent--moist, not too sweet, the cheese strudel was fluffy and not too dense, though servings are on the smaller side. Service team members were nice though I think a little on the slower side in terms of checking in on how we were doing, it took a while to get the check.
I'd stop by again! read more