Café Eiles

Review

Federal President Melange

Photo: Heribert Corn Many people already liked the Eiles anyway. Perhaps because it was large and therefore quite anonymous, because - if you were dressed in brown - you blended into the surroundings and became invisible, or simply because the Eiles was a very traditional Viennese coffee house without any fuss.
If you liked Café Eiles, you also liked those unbearable brown and beige flower covers on the benches, those indoor plants that were completely out of place in a coffee house and tried to create chlorophyll despite the atmosphere, and finally, if you liked Eiles, you also liked or at least accepted the fitted carpet, the Armageddon of a floor covering. Some people managed that, but not enough. The Eiles slipped into the red, the owners didn't want to part with the café, but didn't invest either, so they hired a manager. That was a few years ago and this manager was Gert Kunze, who was already known from many gastronomy projects in Vienna, from Österreicher im Mak to a rather bizarre project called Seven Heaven, a kind of mystical gastronomic experience. This Gert Kunze finally managed to buy the café in summer 2015. The first step was a new bar, which gave the brown café a bit of structure. Six weeks of renovations were then carried out in spring and the café reopened in mid-August. And lo and behold: the carpet was gone. The seat covers are now a mottled red, the walls and ceiling a dark yellow. The café looks tidy. Details such as the magnificent, twisted table legs of the marble tables are shown to much better advantage, the typical coat racks are lined up in rows, the chatter seems somehow more animated, the staff consists of elegant, young men in black outfits, often with tattoos. And the Eiles is really busy - at least at peak times. The menu is also refreshing, with classics such as Sacher sausage and goulash soup, of course, but also mozzarella, Ceasar salad and club sandwiches. The ham roll, Russian egg and appetizer bread were all out, which was a shame, but at least there were no burgers, so you have to be grateful.
The goulash soup was good and plentiful (€ 4.20), the boiled beef with creamed spinach, rösti, chive sauce and apple horseradish a little overcooked, but tender, the rösti with lots of caraway seeds, the portion huge (€ 11.20), the apple strudel unfortunately not so great, wrong dough, mushy and riddled with cores (€ 3.90).
On the other hand, the coffee from the in-roastery Andraschko from Berlin is very good and not only that: 50 cents of the melange price goes to the Van der Bell election movement. In summary: old coffee houses don't have to die. If you let some light in, literally and proverbially, these are the best places around. Café Eiles 8th, Josefstädter Str. 2 Tel. 01/405 34 10 Mon-Fri 7-24, Sat, Sun 8-24 www.cafe-eiles.at

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