Cafe Griensteidl

Locally Sourced Restaurant

Re-opened in 1992, the Cafe Griensteidl at No. 2 is one of the legendary symbols of the coffee house culture of old Vienna. From 1847 to 1897 the former chemist Heinrich Griensteidl ran a coffee house here in the Palais Dietrichstein which was patronized by such well known writers and artists as Hermann Bahr, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Arthur Schnitzler, Karl Kraus, Hugo Wolf and Arnold Schönberg. After Griensteidl’s death the cafe had to move to the Palais Herbertstein, but Karl Kraus ensured it a place of honor in literary history by describing it in his satirical polemic “Literature Vandalized”.