Cafe Sabarsky   

1048 5th Ave
New York, NY 10028
212-288-0665
www.wallse.com

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"That is the way of a real Viennese coffee house: that you can have as much or as little as you like," says the manager of Cafe Sabarsky, the Neue Museum's spare but quaintly elegant cafe named after the museum's founder, Serge Sabarsky. Having escaped Vienna just hours before the Gestapo came looking for him, Sabarsky moved to New York after serving in the U.S. Army during World War II and became a successful interior designer. After viewing a 1965 Guggenheim exhibit of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele works, he began collecting Austrian and German art, which the museum now exhibits. Beyond the famous coffee, the cafe features the cuisine of chef Kurt Gutenbrunner, of Greenwich Village's Wallse, and includes traditional dishes like Bavarian sausages with potato salad and venison goulash with spatzle. Still, the cafe is best known for its pastries. People rave about the strudel and the cheesecake made with quark cheese, a light, creamy staple of many Austrian and German recipes. On Thursdays, there are also cabaret acts which showcase a variety of talented performers.