Café Diglas

As our festive Christmas break in Vienna was coming to an end, we realised there was a real danger of us leaving Austria without having paid any visits at all to its famous traditional Kaffeehausen!

So one afternoon Bailey, Steve and I took ourselves off in search of a lovely Kaffeehaus and eventually decided on the gorgeous looking Café Diglas near the scenic Stephansplatz.

As soon as we went inside the beautiful, cosy Kafeehaus, I was smitten. It was a feast for the eyes - very traditionally decorated but with a few quirky, modern twists such as the twinkly fairy light curtains and the teacup chandeliers.

I felt like I was back in the 1920s particularly when the soothing sounds of live piano music washed over me - the icing on the cake!

The selection of cakes and strudels that greeted us at the door from behind the bar was also enough to make anyone's mouth water.

The three of us got ourselves a little table and had some fun rehearsing what we were going to order with our limited German.

We decided we would order a few cakes that were quite different to eachother so that we could try as many things as possible. Having our cake and eating it, if you will.

We decided to get one slice of Gugelhupf - a bit of an Austrian signature cake, one slice of Strudel (when in Rome) and one slice of a really chocolatey cake (to be honest what I had in mind was Claire's German Chocolate Cake we'd had at the Clandestine Cake Club meeting at Red House Farm but there didn't seem to be anything as luscious!)

I went up to the front and found a very friendly member of staff who told me how to say the various cake names and we put in our order for three Melanges (kind of like a Cappuccino) and the cakes.

The coffee was fab and was perfect to go with a nice bit of cake. The strudel was really lovely - lots of soft apples and currants with a nice crispy pastry. The chocolate cake was delicious too - very light with layers of soft cake and creamy mousse. The Gugelhupf I was very disappointed by - it was rather dry - quite possibly stale - and you had to have a good glug of Melange to get it down the throat!

Having said that we did hoover up every crumb so it can't have been so bad!

We really enjoyed our Kaffeehause trip and would urge anyone visiting Vienna to hunt out a nice looking traditional one (not a modern one, they look rubbish) and to do the same. Although we felt the cakes didn't really blow our minds as much as we expected (it might be worth finding one of the locals - who are all SUPER nice in Vienna - and asking them where the best cakes can be found), the experience itself was a fantastic one.

Next time we are in Vienna I think I will aim to visit one Kaffeehaus every afternoon!