Bakery cafés & Konditoreien in Cologne

Café Wahlen on the Hohenstaufenring

Heinrich Wahlen founded the Konditorei in 1911 at Heumarkt 58 and moved it to Breite Straße in 1930. In 1938 his son, also Heinrich, took over and moved it to Hohenstaufenring 64, where it still stands.² The thousand-bomber raid of 1942 destroyed the café, and it reopened in 1949 after six and a half years of rebuilding.²

The chairs with velvet seats and woven backs were bought in 1959 and are still in use, and in 1977 the sons Heinz junior and Dieter Wahlen took over from their parents.² Wahlen opens Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00 and closes at 18:00.

Old cake houses in the Altstadt and Sülz

Café Konditorei Eigel at Brückenstraße 1–3 has more than 170 years behind it and bakes over 40 kinds of torte daily, plus petits fours, pralines and tea biscuits; its 360 seats spread over a winter garden, a lounge and a terrace.³

Two older names close by have their own history. Café Reichard, facing the cathedral’s main portal, was destroyed in the Second World War and rebuilt by the broadcaster WDR in its original neo-Gothic style, and it is known for Baumkuchen (layered spit cake).¹ Café Jansen on Obenmarspforten dates from the mid-19th century and is now run by Fassbender, a group of cake shops based in Siegburg.¹

In Sülz, Café Osterspey on Luxemburger Straße was founded in 1919; the Osterspey family stopped running it in 1990, and the new owners kept the name.⁴

Modern pâtisserie in the Südstadt

Nimmersatt Cafe & Konditorei at Darmstädter Straße 19 belongs to Isa and Moritz, who met during their Konditor (pastry chef) training in Cologne and Wermelskirchen and then worked in pâtisseries in southern Germany. After Isa passed her Meisterprüfung, the master craftsman exam, in Heidelberg in 2020, they returned to the Rhineland and opened in the Südstadt in the middle of lockdown.⁵ It opens Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00–17:00.

In the same quarter, Löwen Café at Severinstraße 54a serves cake and breakfast with beans from Löwenkaffee’s own roastery, which has roasted in Cologne since 1841.⁶ Further up the same street, TWO AND A HALF at number 126 opens at 08:00 from Tuesday to Friday.

Pastéis de nata, Turkish pastry and vegan cake

Liebigstraße is where Cologne gets its pastéis de nata, the Portuguese custard tarts. Pastelaria Luso at number 118c bakes them plain, with pudding filling or with coconut, and cafés such as Van Dyck and Schamong source theirs from the same street.⁷

Keupstraße in Mülheim, an 890 m street where Turkish residents took over many empty shops in the 1970s, is known as a center of Turkish-origin life in Cologne.⁸ Hasret Pastanesi, a pastane or Turkish pastry shop, is at number 50.

Gesund und Süß at Benesisstraße 48 sells cakes and sweets made by hand at its own manufactory in Bonn, with only vegan and gluten-free ingredients and no refined sugar.⁹