Café Sacher Vienna Review: Original Sacher-Torte at One of Vienna’s Top 3 Cafés, Austria
Vienna, Austria is home to a few legendary coffeehouses
often referred to as Vienna’s top 3 cafés.
Café Sacher, Café Demel, and Café Central
are the big three, and on this trip,
I made it to Sacher and Demel.
Today’s post is a quick review of Café Sacher, one of the most iconic stops for anyone looking for the original Sacher-Torte in Vienna.
Café Sacher Wien
Café Sacher is located on the ground floor of Hotel Sacher.
Opening hours are from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM.
Original Sacher-Torte at Café Sacher Vienna: Wait Times
This place is incredibly popular,
so from around 10 AM through the late afternoon,
you should pretty much expect a line.
If you want to avoid waiting, go before 9 AM
or come very late at night.
That said, daytime is definitely the prettiest time to visit—
the natural light is lovely,
and it really feels like the perfect hour for coffee in Vienna.
We were staying at Hotel Sacher,
and hotel guests can enter without waiting.
Even if the café is full, guests are basically given priority
and placed first in line for the next available table.
My Hotel Sacher Vienna stay review
Café Sacher Vienna Visit Tips
The hotel entrance and the café entrance are separate,
and the café itself doesn’t have just one entrance either.
On the map, both spots marked with a V
are entrances to Café Sacher,
but they are not connected inside.
They’re both Café Sacher,
just different dining spaces.
The waiting lines are separate for each entrance too.
If you’re visiting, I’d recommend the side marked with the blue V.
It’s larger and prettier overall.
The space you usually see in YouTube videos and blog posts
is the blue-side second-floor dining room.
The red-side space is smaller and only one floor,
and since we entered through the passage connected to the hotel,
we ended up in the red-side hall.
Inside the Café
We used the smaller hall on the red-V side,
but honestly, it was still beautiful and full of charm.
I’d just line up wherever the wait is shorter.
This is the overall look of the interior.
After staying at Hotel Sacher, I got the feeling that
this deep red color is one of the brand’s signatures,
and the café uses that same palette throughout.
The chandeliers and framed artwork on the walls were gorgeous too.
Vienna Top 3 Cafés: Café Sacher Menu
A quick look at the Café Sacher menu.
The must-order original Sacher-Torte cake costs
€9.9 per slice (about $11),
or €54 to €73 for a whole cake (about $58 to $79), depending on size.
Coffee drinks included an Americano (black coffee) for €6.7,
Sacher Mélange for €7,
and Einspänner for €7.5, among others—and everything can be made decaf.
There were also breakfast dishes
and plenty of other desserts,
but I didn’t photograph the full menu (you can check Google Maps for that).
This is how they package the whole cakes.
The shelf life is about two weeks,
which is surprisingly long for a cake,
so it actually makes a nice gift to bring home.
Coffee Tasting
Honestly, when you stay at the hotel,
the Sacher-Torte, coffee, and even brunch-style dishes
are already included at breakfast,
so it did feel a little unnecessary to pay again.
But Café Sacher is such a famous institution in Vienna
that I still wanted to experience the café itself separately.
We ordered an affogato, an iced Americano, and Sacher-Torte.
The affogato was €7.9 (about $8.50),
and you can switch it to decaf, which is what I did.
Coffee is good pretty much everywhere in Vienna,
so of course this was good too.
That said, because of the vanilla ice cream,
it ended up tasting a little more ordinary than I expected,
so I liked it slightly less
than when I just had the coffee on its own.
Sacher-Torte
Café Sacher in Vienna, Austria is the only café
allowed to use the menu name
‘Original Sacher-Torte.’
Sacher-Torte
is a chocolate sponge cake layered with apricot jam
and coated in a thick chocolate glaze.
It was first created in the 1800s
by Franz Sacher.
It’s traditionally served with unsweetened whipped cream on the side,
which makes total sense because the cake itself is already sweet.
If the cream were sweet too, it would be a lot.
It’s dense, rich, and definitely tasty,
but since we’re not huge dessert people,
the two of us barely finished one slice together.
Meanwhile, I saw Austrian men come in two at a time
and each order a full slice for themselves like it was nothing.
Honestly, impressive.
Final Thoughts
Café Sacher is such a symbolic, classic stop in Vienna,
and the coffee, desserts, and brunch dishes are all solid,
so if the line isn’t too bad,
I do think it’s worth experiencing at least once.
The interior is beautiful too, so it’s great for photos.
Our total came to about 40,000 KRW, roughly $30.
Technically, it was money I didn’t need to spend,
but I definitely would have regretted skipping the café.
This is the Sacher-Torte served at breakfast.
The slice is smaller than the one sold in the café.
And this is the Sacher-Torte cube.
It was provided as welcome food in our room,
and the cube shape makes it perfect as a one-bite snack.
You can also buy it at the café as a gift set,
but the shelf life is only about 8 days,
which is shorter than the whole cake,
so keep that in mind before buying.
Other Hotel Sacher posts
A review of the deluxe room at Hotel Sacher Vienna, one of the most luxurious honeymoon hotels in Vienna, Austria, where I stayed for two nights…
blog.naver.com
