gastronomy - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 2011 - 62 Euro Cent

Café Hawelka on Dorotheergasse in Vienna's city center is one of the last great literary and artistic coffee houses in the Middle European tradition. The popular restaurant is run by Leopold Hawelka, his son Günter and his two grandchildren Amir and Michael. Leopold Hawelka began his career as a café animal in 1936 with Café Alt Wien in Bäckerstraße; In May 1939, he and his wife decided to take over the rundown Café Ludwig in Dorotheergasse. The impressive interior decoration, designed by a student of Adolf Loos, was intact when the Hawelkas took it over - and it has remained untouched ever since. Although Café Hawelka was closed during World War II, it miraculously remained undamaged. At the reopening in autumn 1945, the coffee was prepared on a wood stove - and when winter came, Leopold Hawelka collected firewood on a handcart in the Wienerwald, while his wife took care of the guests. The cafe soon became a central meeting place for the inhabitants of an occupied and divided city, and for those returning from war or emigration, it was the ideal environment to escape the misery of the times. The restaurant's warm and peaceful atmosphere proved particularly appealing to writers and intellectuals - many of whom soon became a home away from home. During the sixties and seventies Café Hawelka represented everything that was fresh and energetic in the Viennese art scene. Like most of the members of Fantastic Realism, poets H.C. Artmann, Friedrich Achleitner and Gerhard Rühm, the actors Helmut Qualtinger and Oskar Werner, the conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the singers Georg Danzer and André Heller as well as the photographer Franz Hubmann, who immortalized the coffee house over the decades with his pictures. Many celebrities from abroad never failed to visit the Café Hawelka when they were in Vienna - big names like Elias Canetti, Henry Miller, Arthur Miller or Andy Warhol, to name just a few, were among them. In short, Café Hawelka became an institution over time, and Mr. and Mrs. Hawelka soon became as famous as their illustrious guests. Even today, Café Hawelka is a refuge, a kind of refuge in the middle of the pulsating city of Vienna. For many guests, of course, the fragrance of the legendary Buchteln, which every night fulfills the smoky room in a familiar way, is indispensable.