Emil Altmann and Ernst Kühne opened their confiserie on the Graben in 1928 with an idea that still carries the house: pralines as small as fingertips, made by hand, packed in boxes that look like chests of drawers, hat boxes or dollhouse bonbonnieres. The designs came from the circle of the Wiener Werkstätte; the shopfront was designed by Josef Hoffmann.
In 1938 the Jewish founders had to flee to New York; an employee carried the shop through the years, and so it still stands today, tiny, elegant, slightly out of time. Buy a box and you buy a piece of Viennese design history you can eat.
