‘The Cafe With No Name’ by Robert Seethaler (2023) – 191 pages Translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire
Sometimes the simplest plot for a novel is the best.
In ‘The Cafe With No Name’, Robert Simon opens a cafe in Vienna. It serves alcohol; it’s what we would call a bar and grill. Simon operates the cafe for about ten years. The novel consists of vignettes about the owner, the people who work at the cafe, and its customers.
How can you write a novel about Vienna without at least some scenes along the Danube River? You can’t. When their troubles get too much for them, the residents of this neighborhood often go for walks along the Danube.
Every cafe or restaurant or bar has a fascinating history. Each could have its own interesting story. I am going to show only one example from ‘The Cafe With No Name’, and then I expect you will want to read this novel.
We begin with a conversation between a patron of the cafe, the professional wrestler Rene Wurm, and the cafe owner and operator about the waitress Mila:
“I am, Simon, I’m a good man, aren’t I?”
“You never know for sure, but I think so.”
“Yes, I am. And I want to prove it to her. But first I have to find out if she likes me. You’ve got the cafe, you know how these things go.”
“What things.”
“With women!” Rene exclaimed. “Things with women, for God’s sake.”
On the advice of Robert Simon, Rene gets the courage to approach the waitress Mila and ask her if she would like to go for a walk in the park.
“Yes, I think I would like to, Rene,” she said, and no matter how often he thought back to that moment later in life, he could never say what threw him more off balance that day: Mila’s small hand on his shoulder or the incredible fact that she hadn’t laughed in his face.”
At one point Simon himself has a potential girlfriend. She tells him,
“When I was young a fellow said to me, my dear fräulein , I know you’re too beautiful for me, but I’ll give it a try anyway – will you go to the pictures with me? What an idiot. Did you send him packing? No, I married him. I never understood men, but I like having them around me.”
‘The Cafe With No Name’ is a low-key understated look at life’s disappointments and sad stuff and how we cope with them, as well as the small joys in each day. The cafe isn’t all that successful, but it does have its share of drunks and crazies.
Robert Seethaler does not make the mistake in his novel of making his human characters better than humans usually are.
Grade: A
Tony's Book World 
Posted by Lisa Hill on July 2, 2025 at 2:50 AM
I like this author… I’ve read A Whole Life, and The Tobacconist so I’m pleased to see this new one.
I notice he has a new translator, replacing Charlotte Collins. I’m guessing that’s because she’s now translating longer books. Her translation of Darkenbloom was excellent.
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Posted by Anokatony on July 2, 2025 at 3:04 AM
Hi Lisa,
I like the idea of a novel about the owner, workers, and patrons of a bar and restaurant, and ‘The Cafe With No Name’ is well executed. Every restaurant or bar has its own story. It is a place where people get together.
I do see that the two Seethaler novels I have read have different translaters.
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Posted by Lisa Hill on July 2, 2025 at 4:26 AM
They’re like hotel novels (as in the short stories of Katherine Mansfield and others). They enable a range of disparate characters who don’t necessarily know each other which often makes for an interesting story.
On my first trip to Europe in 2001, we took an Air Lauda flight and landed in Vienna at 6:00am. We dumped our bags at the hotel but couldn’t check in, so we went for a brisk walk in the autumn chill, looking for something — anything — that was open. Alas, the cafés don’t open till 8:00am so we were mighty pleased when finally the doors opened and we were inside. (It was one of the most famous cafés in Vienna, but we didn’t know that.)
So different in ambience to Australian cafés or what I’ve seen of American bar-and-grills on TV! Very quiet, panelled in dark wood and with white tablecloths and good cutlery. Black tie waiters (all men). And although it was a tourist hotspot which today would be *sigh* full of selfie-takers, the clientele were Viennese quietly having coffee and pastries for breakfast while they read the newspaper. Nobody was talking at all, except for the occasional murmured placing of an order with the waiter. The newspapers came from a stand on the side of the room, attached to a wooden roller so that a broadsheet was opened out and easily read.
LOL We committed a faux pas there, branding ourselves as ignorant tourists by ordering a café Maria Theresa, which was their signature coffee but nobody orders it in the morning because the coffee is laced with an orange liqueur and topped with whipped cream and orange peel. But our body clocks were still on Aussie time and it felt like evening to us, so we enjoyed ourselves anyway!
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Posted by Anokatony on July 2, 2025 at 4:53 AM
Nowadays I do most of my traveling by sitting at home and reading novels.
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Posted by Lisa Hill on July 2, 2025 at 5:56 AM
Yup, me too.
At first it was the pandemic, but now overtourism seems to be ruining everything I might want to see in peace and quiet. I consider myself lucky to have done my travelling when I did.
(Especially that first trip which was straight after 9/11. From Vienna to the UK and then to Paris and the Loire Valley, tourists were few and far between because people were afraid to fly.)
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