Vienna has it all: Chocolate, cafés and brilliant designs that will captivate.

Vienna: Fabulous By Design

Oliver Goetz is serious about his coffee. I’m at the bar of his tiny coffee shop, Alt Wien Kaffee (altwien.at), where the slow roaster sits just inside the front door. The air is so warm and aromatic I feel like I’m in the womb of a coffee bean.

“As coffee roasters, we’re purists,” Oliver says, working behind the bar. “It’s hard to find a really pure espresso, even here in Vienna. Try this.” He sets a little cup in front of me. I’ve barely sipped it before I realize it is by far the strongest caffeinated product to ever touch my lips. I sneak some sugar into the espresso, which is unyielding in its intensity.

Oliver says no matter how much you try to educate customers about the nuances and subtleties of coffee, “There are those who still like their coffee with milk.” Like me. I then order a melange—half coffee and half milk, with frothy steamed milk on top. Oliver assures me that he isn’t offended. I add two sugars and savor every sip.

Two days earlier, I arrive in Vienna with a list of recommendations from friends: Catch a performance at the State Opera House; see Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss at the Belvedere; and go to Central Cemetery, where Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms are buried. But after checking in at my hotel, Altstadt Vienna (altstadt.at), I make a reckless decision to leave the list behind. The streets are calling.

I spend 72 hours walking this capital city, and I’m delighted to find that it has more than a few of my favorite things: funky clothing shops, contemporary design stores and so many independent bookstores that I want to weep with joy. I find a city that’s surprisingly eco-friendly. And I fall in love with Viennese hot chocolate—a perfectly sweet, milky antidote to the espresso.

Vienna’s coffeehouses are unhurried and extraordinarily civilized. I am told a coffeehouse should be considered a second living room—as comfortable and relaxing as your own home. Some have full menus, and some only have pastries. But if it feels like a place where you can bring a book and read all afternoon or meet with friends—as my neighbors were doing at 130-year-old Café Sperl (cafesperl.at)—then you’d be safe calling it a coffeehouse. Another long-established coffeehouse is 23-hour Café Drechsler (cafedrechsler.at). If you’re looking for a quicker kaffee, try the ’60s-style pink neon and chrome chain Aida (aida.at), where you can stand at the bar with your drink.

What better way to relish the slow pace than with sweets? One treat to go out of your way for: the apple strudel at Café Diglas (diglas.at), near St. Stephens. There are also a handful of chocolate shops that exhibit their wares so artfully, you’d think they were displaying fine jewelry. That’s the case at Fruth Chocolaterie (fruth.at), where delicate chocolates are shown in old-style cabinets. I stop in the famous 1786 chocolate shop Demel (demel.at) and hang out in the back of the shop, watching pastries and cakes being made.

Finally, I hit Wiener Schokolade König (leschanz.at), the “chocolate king.” Housed in what was a well-known button shop in the days of the monarchy, the store still displays old buttons and presents chocolate in tiny button drawers. But the best discovery of all is that my favorite hot chocolate of the trip (I had about six cups of heisse schokolade in three days) isn’t from a coffeehouse at all—it’s in a disposable cup at this store, served thick and creamy with plenty of milk and sugar. I can’t think of any better way to shop.

Art

My first full day in Vienna, Alexa Brauner (alexabrauner.at), a Viennese design and architecture connoisseur, takes me on a walking tour. She says it’s important to understand that before the Iron Curtain started coming down in 1989, there was no exchange of artistic ideas in Vienna, and there was only one gallery in the entire city.

“Before then, it was dead,” she says. But in just two decades, a once-dark city has sprouted communities of young artists, musicians and designers. The neighborhood with the most creative energy and commerce is the Seventh District (7tm.at), where we start our walk, outside my hotel.

Our first stop is Park (park.co.at), a sterile-looking high-fashion apparel store that stocks books by Phillip Roth, Sylvia Plath and Jonathan Franzen and displays a pair of thigh-high leather boots for $1,320 (gulp). Next is Das Möebel (dasmoebel.at), a furniture and accessory gallery where I find terrific pastel-colored boxy stools, mirrors in the shape of Eastern European countries and an egg holder that looks and feels like a putting green.

Alexa and I spend the morning walking into shops, and I follow her lead, greeting shopkeepers with “grüss gott,” a decidedly Austrian salutation that has a range of meanings and emotions behind it, but mostly “may God greet you” or “God bless you.”

We walk toward the city center, past Mariahilfer Strasse, Vienna’s largest commercial street. Next is a stop at the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art (mak.at), known as MAK. The museum, built in the 1870s neo-Renaissance style, is free on Saturdays and located adjacent to the University of Applied Arts. MAK has a valuable collection of Wiener Werkstätte furniture, oriental rugs and precious textiles, porcelain and glass.

The exquisite design continues at Österreicher im MAK (oesterreicherimmak.at), the museum restaurant named after its star chef, Helmut Osterreicher. There’s a Lobmeyr chandelier crafted from glass bottles, and the faucet in the restroom sink is a fountain of water that shoots up through a grate. The menu offers traditional and contemporary Viennese fare, so there’s beef goulash on the former and herb-filled ravioli and pickled pumpkin salad on the latter.

I tell Alexa I’m surprised by the number of vegetarian options on menus in Vienna, after expecting largely sausages and schnitzels. She says the cuisine here (the only international cuisine named after a city rather than a country) is more sophisticated than that in other parts of Austria, since it’s so close to Italy. While traditional Viennese cuisine is hearty, meaty and often breaded, there’s a new movement to eat less meat, which I learn has as much to do with the environment as human or animal health.

After lunch we pop into the Post Office Savings Bank, designed by Otto Wagner, the architect and city planner who has had the most lasting impact on Vienna. The 1906 buiding used innovative materials for that era, such as reinforced concrete and aluminum. Inside, there’s a small museum, Wagner: Werk Museum Postsparkasse (ottowagner.com), with gorgeous photographs and architectural plans that delve into the mind of a genius.

Alexa and I stop for coffee, hit another dozen stores (“grüss gott!”) and end up in the city center, at Graben, the bustling main square. We walk around St. Stephen’s Cathedral (stephanskirche.at), the country’s best example of Gothic architecture and the venue of Mozart’s wedding. (I skip the 343 steps up to the towerkeeper’s room.)

We peek into Mühlbauer (muehlbauer.at), the century-old hat shop whose customers include Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep and Yoko Ono. (In case you’re wondering, headwear trends for 2010 include tiny hats for women and straw, yarn or hemp weaves for men.)

By nightfall, the Altstadt is luring me back. On the way there, I stop and buy an irresistible dress by a Hungarian designer at punkish Disaster Clothing (disasterclothing.at). Then I grab a book and easily sink into one of the sofas in the hotel’s Red Salon, where evenings mean hot drinks, freshly made cakes and a visiting Dalmatian curled up by the carefully tended fire.