The Opera Ball, the most exclusive of all Vienna balls, as seen in 1960.

Let Them Eat Cake

Europe is in crisis, but you’d never know it in Vienna, where the upper classes are preoccupied with balls of all persuasions

By Harrison Vail

Among Vienna’s more notable cultural exports—up there with psychoanalysis, waltzes, and Klimt—is a cake.

The Sacher torte is a decadent affair, spongy on the inside, principally made from chocolate, often served with a dollop of unsweetened schlag. Lore has it that the torte was first whipped up in 1832 at the height of Hapsburg hegemony over Europe for Count Metternich, whose chef invented a cake that was coated and sealed with apricot jam and a hard chocolate shell, which preserved it, allowing it to be shipped great distances without spoiling.