Apfelstrudel at Demel

Here is one of the oldest pastry shops in the city. Demel sits on Kohlmarkt 14, just steps from Hofburg Palace. Since 1786, this place has been making sweets for emperors and anyone willing to join the queue.

Their Apfelstrudel is legendary. But the pastry itself? Not Austrian at all.

The Ottomans brought it. In the 1500s, when Turkish armies marched on the city walls, they carried baklava and similar layered pastries as military rations. After the sieges ended, Viennese bakers took the technique and transformed it. They swapped honey and nuts for apples, cinnamon, and raisins. The oldest written strudel recipe dates to 1697 and sits in a library nearby.

Empress Maria Theresa loved it. She ate strudel regularly at court, turning a simple Ottoman field snack into high imperial cuisine.

The name reveals the method. Strudel means whirlpool in German, describing how the paper thin dough swirls around the filling. Traditional bakers still stretch the dough until you can read a love letter through it.

In 1874, Demel earned the title Imperial and Royal Court Confectioner. The windows display pastries like crown jewels, exactly as they did when Habsburg royalty strolled past. Inside, waitresses in white aprons still address customers in formal third person, a custom from the empire days.