A trip to Vienna is not complete without sampling the decadent chocolate cake known as the Sacher Torte. In fact, entire food pilgrimages are devised just to get a taste of this famous torte. (See National Geographic’s “Journeys of a Lifetime.”) First created by Franz Sacher in 1832, the Sacher Torte is comprised of chocolate cake, thin layers of apricot jam, topped with chocolate icing and served with copious amounts of unsweetened whipped cream—but the exact recipe has been kept a closely guarded secret.
More than 360,000 of these famous cakes are baked every year, and the original Sacher Torte is a veritable symbol of Austria’s capital, on par with the Lipizzaner Horses, Vienna’s Ringstrasse, St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Imperial Palace-Hofburg. Today it can be found at the five-star Hotel Sacher Wien—established by the Franz’s son Eduard Sacher in 1876—along with the Hotel Sacher in Salzburg and Sacher Cafés in Vienna, Salzburg, Graz and Innsbruck.
Here’s a fun piece of foodie news just in time for the spring-summer picnic season. The legendary Sacher Torte is now available for take-away by the slice. Priced at €6.50, the “Sacher to Go” is freshly baked every day and available from Café Sacher Wien. It’s wrapped up in elegant packaging, and comes complete with its own wooden fork (for easy eating al fresco).
Pssst: The original Sacher Torte is also available for purchase at the Sacher online store; the cakes in their elegant signature boxes can be shipped with worldwide delivery.