Best coffee houses in Salzburg: Café Tomaselli, Café Bazar, Café Sacher and Café Fürst, with the hours, the cakes and the original Mozartkugel

💡 The Short Version: The coffee house named by the most of the 25 publishers counted is Café Tomaselli on the Alter Markt (11), open from 7:00 Monday to Saturday. Café Sacher and Café Fürst follow with 7 each, and Café Bazar has 5. Café Bazar takes no reservations. Café Sacher is open daily to 22:00, the latest of the four. Fürst’s “Original Salzburger Mozartkugel” is the original sweet; a box of nine is €23.30. Or book a tour: the Mozart Chocolate Workshopad is from €65 for 2 hours (GetYourGuide).

📊 The evidence behind this guide. Nothing here is ranked on one visit. The counts are the publishers, among 25 publishers of Salzburg food lists, 19 in English and 6 in German, that name the place. Tripadvisor and other review sites and the cafés’ own sites are not counted, and the hours are each café’s own. How the guides are made

The coffee houses named by the most sources

The English lists send visitors to the Tomaselli: all 11 publishers that name it write in English. The tourist board’s coffeehouse page separates the old coffeehouses from the modern roast houses, and 220 Grad, a roaster in Nonntal, is named by 4 of the 25. A Salzburg coffee house serves cake and breakfast as well as coffee, so the hours below decide the visit.

The coffee houses

Café Tomaselli

Alter Markt 9 · Monday to Saturday 7:00 to 19:00, Sunday and holidays 8:00 to 19:00 · Cited by 11 of 25 sources (11 English) · tomaselli.at

Run by the Tomaselli family for over 150 years. Breakfast comes with rolls, croissants and poppy-seed buns in a bread basket in a linen napkin, and the waiter’s morning question is “ein Häferl mit Schlag?”, a cup with whipped cream. It has a newspaper rack, a small room called the Stüberl, a kiosk and a terrace. The café tells the story that Hermann Bahr, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Max Reinhardt thought up the Salzburg Festival at one of its tables. It stands on the Alter Markt, a short way from the Christkindlmarkt.

The terrace of Café Tomaselli on the Alter Markt. Photo: Andreas Praefcke, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

Café Sacher

Hotel Sacher, Schwarzstraße 5-7, on the Salzach · daily 8:30 to 22:00 · Cited by 7 of 25 sources (5 English, 2 German) · sacher.com

The café serves the Original Sacher-Torte. The hotel’s breakfast buffet runs daily from 7:00 to 10:30, the Sacher Grill serves 12:00 to 14:30 and 18:00 to 21:30, and the Zirbelzimmer Thursday to Sunday 18:00 to 21:00. The café is the late one: it is open to 22:00 every day. See where to stay in Salzburg for the hotel.

The Hotel Sacher on the bank of the Salzach, home of the Café Sacher. Photo: Andreas Praefcke, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

Café Fürst

Brodgasse 13 on the Alter Markt, and Mirabellplatz 5 · Alter Markt Monday to Saturday 9:00 to 19:00, Sunday and holidays 10:00 to 17:00; Mirabellplatz Thursday 8:30 to 18:00, other weekdays and Saturday 9:30 to 18:00, Sunday and holidays 10:00 to 17:00 · Cited by 7 of 25 sources (6 English, 1 German) · original-mozartkugel.com

The confectioner that makes the Original Salzburger Mozartkugel runs two coffee houses. The pastries include Sachertorte, Esterházy and Dobos torte, cream slices, Parisian Spitz and apple strudel, and there is a terrace and, in summer, ice cream. The Alter Markt café is the original address, on the Brodgasse.

Café Bazar

Schwarzstraße 3 · Monday to Saturday 7:30 to 19:30, Sunday and holidays 9:00 to 18:00 · no reservations · Cited by 5 of 25 sources (5 English) · cafe-bazar.at

Opened on 23 September 1909 by Richard Tomaselli, brother of Otto Tomaselli, the owner of the Café Tomaselli. The building, by the Ceconi brothers in the early 1880s, housed shops, hence the name Bazar. It has a guest book since 1927, a terrace with a view of the old town and the fortress, and serves breakfast all day. The Brandstätter family runs it.

The terrace of Café Bazar, under its row of trees. Photo: Vysotsky, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Mozartkugel

The Original Salzburger Mozartkugel is a ball of pistachio marzipan wrapped in nougat and dipped in dark chocolate, in silver foil with a blue Mozart portrait. Fürst says Paul Fürst, who opened his confectionery at Brodgasse 13 in 1884, created it around 1890, and that only Fürst makes the “Original Salzburger Mozartkugel”, to the recipe on page 111 of a recipe book of 1915. Martin Fürst is the fifth generation.

The word Mozartkugel itself is generic: it is not protected, so other makers sell Mozartkugeln, and only the full name and the foil are Fürst’s. Buy the original at Fürst’s cafés and shops, which are on the Alter Markt, Mirabellplatz, Getreidegasse, Ritzerbogen, Residenzplatz and in Elsbethen, or in its online shop.

To make them, the Mozart Chocolate Workshopad is from €65 for 2 hours, for up to 20 people at Werkstättenstraße 22: you shape, dip and decorate 10 Mozartkugeln and take them home with the recipe. Salzburg food tours compares it with the classes.

Plan the rest

Where to eat in Salzburg lists the restaurants and inns, and the beer halls and gardens cover the evening. The old town walk passes the Alter Markt, the right bank walk starts by Café Fürst on Mirabellplatz, a short walk from Café Bazar and Café Sacher, and 3 days in Salzburg fits a coffee stop between sights. What to book before you go to Salzburg has the closed days.