Café Central opened in 1876 in the Palais Ferstel, closed in 1943 and reopened in 1975 in the palace's arcaded hall. The room is the reason to come: slender marble columns fanning into ribbed vaults, more like a chapter house than a café. It became the working address of intellectual Vienna. Trotsky played chess here. The poet Peter Altenberg gave the café as his postal address and is now a papier-mâché figure sitting by the door. The habit that made it matter is still enforced by the waiters: you order one coffee and you may stay for the afternoon, with the day's newspapers on wooden frames and nobody hovering.
That arrangement is what Austria's national intangible-heritage inventory recorded in 2011, in a citation saying that guests here consume time and space while only the coffee appears on the bill. Order a melange, which arrives on a small silver tray with a glass of water beside it, and the glass will be refilled without being asked. The waiters wear black waistcoats and keep a formal, unhurried politeness. It is also the most famous coffee house in the city, which means a queue at midday and a much better mid-morning.