Coffee, Crescent, and Circle: The Battle of Vienna's Culinary Revolution

Tracing the origins of croissants, bagels, and Europe's coffee houses

Return from Vienna by Jozef Brandt, showing Polish soldiers returning from Vienna with Ottoman loot.

I’m not a big breakfast person. But now and then, I treat myself to an “everything” bagel with cream cheese or a croissant with a cup of coffee.

Croissants are sold everywhere. I’ve seen them in small Thai towns and bustling Bulgarian tourist hotspots. You won’t have to go far to find a cappuccino.

Bagels are not as popular as the other two but are gaining ground. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have encountered bagels at bakeries in India, but now I see them all the time.

Croissants, coffee, and bagels have become global breakfast mainstays. But it was a 17th-century conflict that catapulted their fame across Europe and beyond. The clash in question is the Battle of Vienna, which occurred in 1683 between the Ottoman Empire and an alliance of the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Though it isn’t easy to pinpoint the true origins of our culinary delights, in this story, we’…