Vienna

Two hotels, two tortes, one lawsuit. The Hotel Sacher’s Original Sacher-Torte and the Hotel Imperial’s Imperial Torte are the most famous hotel desserts in the world, both sold in wooden boxes, both defended in court, both eaten with unsweetened whipped cream in salons of red velvet and crystal. Around them sits the whole Viennese repertoire: the Apfelstrudel, the Kaiserschmarrn, the Topfenstrudel, the Esterházy and the Dobos.

Demel on the Kohlmarkt is the other pole: the former imperial court confectioner where the waitresses still address you in the third person and the cakes sit in a glass window like jewels. The Kurkonditorei Oberlaa, the Café Central and the Café Landtmann keep the coffee-house tradition alive, and Altmann & Kühne, since 1928, sells tiny chocolates in boxes shaped like hat boxes and chests of drawers.

Vienna is the best value in the guide for a grand-hotel afternoon: a slice of torte and a Melange in the Sacher costs less than a single pastry in Paris. The new Rosewood on the Petersplatz and the Park Hyatt added modern afternoon teas, but the city’s heart is still a marble table, a glass of water on a silver tray and a newspaper on a wooden holder.