Café Tomaselli

The café

The Tomaselli occupies a corner of the Alter Markt, the Old Market square, in the heart of the old town, and the Tomaselli family ran it for more than 150 years. Inside everything belongs to another century: crystal chandeliers, mirrors, plaster ceilings, portraits of former owners and walnut panels with marquetry. The house says that at one of its tables Hermann Bahr, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Max Reinhardt shaped the idea of the Salzburg Festival. It has a main room, a small Stüberl for anyone who wants to breakfast alone, a first-floor terrace over the square and a kiosk on the square itself.

What to have

It opens at seven, when the square is still empty and the first customers are locals reading the newspaper; it has Austrian, German and international press. Breakfast comes with bread rolls, Kipferl, poppy-seed buns and the house brioche in a basket with a cloth napkin. In the mid-afternoon pastry rules, coming from its own bakery. Order your coffee like a local: a Häferl with cream.

It is a table-service café, with waiters of the old school. With children it works well first thing or in the mid-afternoon, between visits.