Other Gerstner locations in Vienna include the State Opera House and Palais Todesco. So you can imagine this café-restaurant in Schönbrunn palace is not your usual offering for tourists.
- Elegant interior and presentation
- Located in an Imperial tract
- Outside area for warm days
- Try the excellent strudel
- Book a Schönbrunn concert, tour & more*
- See also:
Strudel and more
(It’s a tough life writing travel articles but someone has to do it)
Most people entering the Schönbrunn complex find their eyes drawn to the mighty palace that dominates the forecourt. But no man is an island, and no palace comes without a collection of supporting buildings that look back on their own history.
With demand for soldiers, servants and stallions declining since the days of Emperors and Empresses, many such buildings find new purpose: the Orangery plays host to concerts, for example, while a riding arena houses the Imperial Carriage Museum.
The Kavalierstrakt, which runs along the east side of the forecourt, once prepared food for peckish guardsmen.
Today, tourists in need of refreshment can also find culinary relief within the tract thanks to the café-restaurant run by Gerstner K. u. K. Hofzuckerbäcker. The K. u. K. designation refers to the former official status as suppliers to the Imperial court, an honour awarded back in 1873.
The Schönbrunn location is a little younger, however, having opened in 2024, replacing the former Café Residenz. And I popped in to see what had changed.
(The elegant interior; press photo courtesy of and ©Gerstner K. u. K. Hofzuckerbäcker)
Inside, Gerstner looks like a grand traditional coffee house, complete with chandeliers, upholstered sofas with cushions, coffee house chairs, a glass vitrine layered with cakes, and a white rose on each table. Copies of historical paintings of court life and court portraits line the walls.
Having arrived early to take breakfast outside, my companion and I passed through this elegant interior as a tribe of waiting staff laid the tables.
It felt like a scene that might have played out 150 years ago in anticipation of a visit from the Kaiser or a senior court official. The kind of place, like so many in Vienna, where you might discuss the behaviour of the Prussian ambassador at last night’s ball.
(The outdoor area has more pragmatic seating beneath a roof canopy with misting facilities to offer shade and protection from summer sun and heat.)
(Find tickets and experience options for the palace and zoo)
The elegance extends to the crockery. Breakfast arrived on plates by Villeroy & Boch (founded in 1748), for example. And no packaging, plastic or even jars in sight; the butter and jam had their own dishes.
I base most of my coffee house trips and articles around breakfast, and little things matter to me. For example, the generous portions of butter and jam with my Wiener Frühstück meant no need to treat the application of either as an exercise in rationing (as often happens elsewhere).
The croissant was lovely, and the cappuccino had a little G for Gerstner embedded in the foam; it really is about the little touches. The soft-boiled egg did, however, arrive without a spoon. But I put that down to teething problems with a new enterprise. (I shall return after a few months to check.)
Gerstner offers, of course, a wider menu covering the whole day.
(Little touches matter: Gerstner sugar and foam art)
The service was a fine multilingual juggling act between traditional unhurried coffee house culture and tourist needs.
Food and drinks arrived swiftly and my companion’s order of apple strudel arrived automatically with two forks, which suggests an attentiveness you don’t always get everywhere in Vienna.
Ah, yes, strudel.
My companion is a connoisseur of such pastries and a cynical café visitor as well. But the Gerstner strudel received a decisive “excellent”: a rarely-bestowed compliment indeed.
(Gerstner are rightly proud of their apple strudel, which has pride of place in the glass cake vitrine)
The location actually offers ticketed strudel shows downstairs (included in the Vienna Pass, like many of Schönbrunn’s wider attractions). We didn’t go, but the scent from the doorway was remarkably enticing.
All-in-all the Gerstner establishment matches the wider Imperial surrounds perfectly. This elegance comes at a price, of course…the price, which inevitably reflects the location and mirrors the very high-end coffee house establishments in Vienna’s old town.
How to get there
Find you way to Schönbrunn Palace using these directions. Go through the main entrance and continue across the giant courtyard; head toward the left side of the palace (where the tours start).
You pass Gerstner’s entrance in the centre of the tract on your left, clearly marked where you have the columned white portal. Alternatively, you can go around the far end of that tract to enter the outdoor area from behind.
Address: Kavalierstrakt 52, Schloß Schönbrunn, 1130 Vienna | Website