1870
Majestic and bourgeois: Café Bellaria represents over 150 years of coffeehouse tradition and is a piece of Viennese history. A great heritage. Newly revived.
The Café
Café Bellaria is the oldest continuously operating coffeehouse in Vienna. Opened in 1870 in a Gründerzeit building, it stands today at the intersection of culture and business; of politics and art: between Parliament and the Natural History Museum, between the Palace of Justice and the Hofburg.
The Name
The godfather of Café Bellaria is Emperor Franz Josef himself. The name of the neighborhood – and thus of the café – comes from a ramp to the Hofburg, which was built for Empress Maria Theresia around 1741. So that Her Majesty could drive her carriage to her chambers without climbing stairs. And Franz Josef is said to have liked to walk there because of the good air, the ‘Bellaria’.
The Heritage
The Viennese coffeehouse has been a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage since 2011. And rightly so: it was the midwife of democracy; the place where the bourgeoisie discovered freedom. And the Viennese coffeehouse was the engine of Viennese modernism – the literary, artistic and scientific re-exploration of the world. The coffeehouse: toasts, cakes – but also great thoughts and wild tales.
The new Café Bellaria
The café, the name and the heritage are inseparably connected. Restaurateurs David Figar and Rubin Okotie reopened Café Bellaria in 2021. Not as a museum, but as a modern way of life. Because traditions are powerful – but fragile. To preserve them, we must always breathe new life into them. A Viennese coffeehouse with a rich history and contemporary gastronomy. The new Café Bellaria.
