The Story of Fischer’s
“There is almost no aspect of daily life in Vienna that cannot somehow be credited to or blamed on the coffee house as an institution: grand visions, creative ideas, passionate enmities and eternal love stories.” – Christian Grunwald, The Viennese Coffeehouse
By the turn of the twentieth century there were approximately 800 coffee houses in Vienna – a figure unmatched anywhere else in Europe at the time.
This was a cultural moment to behold, where marble counter-tops complete with chess boards or newspapers could act as the seat of power for a revolutionary movement, or an artistic reformation.
Picture ‘Bar Central’ or ‘Café Landtman’ in 1913, where Sigmund Freud could be seen at the next table gently arguing with Carl Jung; or some of the most revered Secessionist artists* – Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser or Josef Hoffmann – might have been deep in debate. Peter Altenburg, a nineteenth-century writer, famously gave out the address of Café Central as his own. The coffee house was, to the Viennese, the beating heart of world culture.
Die Familie Fischer
Somewhere amongst these revolutionary thinkers and countless coffee-filled cups, lived the Fischer Family, headed by the mixed marriage of Otto, a Jew, and Maria, a Catholic. Inspired by their good friends at the infamous Zum Schwarzen Kameel (The Black Camel), a favourite of the likes of Beethoven, the Fischers decided to carve out their own corner of Viennese tradition and open a coffee house themselves.
From the visionaries to the scoundrels, the Fischers enticed a crowd of eccentrics by serving up the café staples of the day, such as open sandwiches (Brötchen), unique to Vienna at the time and just as symbolic of its cuisine as the giant Wiener Schnitzels that had been capturing the hearts of the Viennese over at Figlműller behind St Stephen’s Cathedral.
Austria in London
As this melting pot of cultural sophistication continued to bubble away within coffee house walls, the Fischers increasingly saw their café as a superficial oasis in the face of growing hostilities in 1920’s Vienna. Out on the streets, the rise of anti-Semitism began to engulf the country – seeing an increasingly hard-line response to mixed marriages like Otto and Maria’s. To the despair of their regulars, in 1927, the Fischers sold their admired café and fled Austria.
Across the channel, London had long-been cultivating a cultural epicentre of its own. The frivolity of 1920’s flapper culture and the light-hearted attitude it encouraged resonated with Otto and Maria’s sense of Gemütlichkeit (the German for geniality) that had characterised their social lives in Austria. And so, London was the place where the Fischer’s Austrian signature of lavish informality found its second home.
Settling at 50 Marylebone High Street, the family set out to replicate the fond memories of their past. From the Secessionist-style graphic artworks on the stairs to the Austrian and Tyrolean painting on the wood panelling, the walls of Fischer’s enshrine the glory of the creative genius that they played host to in Vienna. While the menu brims with Austrian staples rarely found elsewhere in London, such as the Einspänner coffee and selection of Brötchen sandwiches; the perfect tonic for transporting guests to within the Ringstrasse in old-world Vienna.
*The Vienna Secession was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian artists who had resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists. This movement included painters, sculptors, and architects.
