As a city that boasts having a cuisine named after it, Vienna – and, by extension, Viennese food – is a culinary traveller’s delight.
Sure, you should tick off Schoenbrunn Palace, St Stephen’s Cathedral and the opera house on the tourist trail – in addition to visiting Mak Museum and the thrift stores in the 7th district, for something off the beaten track – but don’t let that detract you from the Austrian capital’s real highlight: its food.
Here are restaurant recommendations for main meals – and then some – for the next time you’re in the city of schnitzel and sacher.
Torte of the town at breakfast
It’s 7am and I am in a queue that snakes along Philharmoniker street in the 1st district. Sacher Cafe Wien is open for business – and for breakfast.
Its most famous offering? The “original” sachertorte – a contentious claim that speaks of chef feuds, recipe robbery and legal battles, but that yields a delicious cake first created in the 19th century. Note: Cake for breakfast is a perfectly reasonable request in Vienna.
A simple chocolate sponge covered with chocolate glaze and filled with apricot jam, sachertorte is filling and comforting.
The Sacher Hotel cafe – all regal chandeliers, plush velvet interiors and views of the Staatsoper opera house – serves it with whipped cream for €10.90 (Dh45) or with water and a hot beverage for €23.50.
Dry without feeling stale, light despite the ganache, the cake is but one item on the 150-year-old cafe’s breakfast menu, served from 7am to 11am, although the restaurant and adjoining shop are open until 11pm.
For something indulgent, especially if you have a long day ahead, consider Anna Sacher’s Breakfast Table (€37.6), a tray filled with breads, pastries, cheeses, ham, salmon, yoghurt with granola, scrambled eggs with pumpkin seed oil, horseradish cream, jam and other spreads, and even bite-size cubes of sachertorte.
Substitute: If you want your sacher or sourdough on a grab-and-go basis, check out Demel at Kohlmarkt 14, open from 10am to 7pm. Established in 1786 – and the opposing party in the battle over the original torte – the cafe is more casual and cosy than Sacher, but no less crowded.
The cake is priced at €7.90 (€7.20 if you get it to go), and Demel is also famous for its candied violets (a favourite of Empress Sisi herself), shredded kaiserschmarrn pancakes and cheese strudel.
Breads and brews to snack on
It’s 10am and the heady scent of freshly baked bread and freshly brewed coffee is radiating along Karntner Strasse, Vienna’s central shopping street.
Basti, one half of the charming brother-sister duo behind Rebel Tours, recommends L Heiner. The historic Austrian coffee house and confectionery has “KuK” emblazoned across its shop front, short for Kaiserlich und Koniglich (Imperial and Royal), which indicates a connection to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Open from 9am to 7pm, the sixth-generation family business offers sweet and savoury baked goods, ice cream and warm desserts, and hot and cold beverages. My selection of the goat’s cheese and spinach strudel, kardinalschnitte (house-invented Cardinal cake) and hot chocolate with whipped cream is the stuff snacking dreams are made of.
Substitute: If you find yourself closer to the 1st district, famed for the city’s 5.3km Ring Road, check out the offerings at Die Cafetiere along Wipplinger Strasse.
Helmed by the formidable Peggy Strobel, former manager of Michelin-starred restaurant Mraz & Sohn, the 1950s-style cafe and furniture shop is crammed but cosy. Strobel’s ace recommendation is Viennese iced coffee – stirred, not shaken. Part drink, part dessert, it is concocted here with creamy, home-made vanilla ice cream, a shot of espresso and whipped cream.
The cafe's delectably flaky croissants, meanwhile, are outsourced from a local bakery with each taking three days to make.
Alternatively, if you’re in the artsy 7th district, head to Calienna. A standout matcha menu aside, the cafe doubles as a plant nursery and landscaping shop, and is a fab spot to people-watch.
Swap schnitzel for tafelspitz at lunch
It’s 1pm and my tour of Hofburg Imperial Palace is drawing to a close. A five-minute walk away is Zum Schwarzen Kameel (aka Black Camel), which offers sandwiches and other cafe-style bites on level one and fine dining fare on level two, from 8am to midnight.
Keen to sample the two meaty mains Vienna is known for, I take the quaint, two-person lift and find myself in a stiff-looking but bright and airy dining hall, complete with tuxedoed staff.
Founded in 1618, the restaurant serves the country's two national dishes schnitzel (€29) and tafelspitz (€29.50) as part of its permanent menu. I have to say the latter runs rings around the schnitzel. Not that there is anything wrong with Austrian veal, pan-fried, breaded and served with more potatoes than one person cannot reasonably be expected to eat. But – at the risk of committing culinary blasphemy – it’s just another cutlet.
Now the tafelspitz, on the other hand, is not only a masterfully tender hunk of beef, but also comes with a host of accompaniments for those who don’t like their meals too dry.
The quintessential heap of potatoes aside, Zum Schwarzen Kameel serves its tafelspitz with creamed spinach, apple horseradish, chive sauce and lush bone marrow bread. Where the deep-fried schnitzel might dominate comfort food territory, tafelspitz is an altogether more refined offering.
Substitute: For more tavern-style dining, head to Steman in the 6th district, close to the city centre. With a wooden tables and chairs, plain walls and uneven floors, this is as authentically gastwirtschaft as it gets.
The menu reflects that inn-like vibe, with spatzle dumplings, roasted black pudding and fried veal liver all on offer. Upon the recommendation of Vienna Tourist Board’s Matthias Schwindl, I get the beef goulash.
Contrary to its soupy Hungarian namesake, this is a curried beef dish served at Stamen with Viennese sausages, a sunny side-up egg and buttery potatoes all lathered in a deep, rich brown gravy. Hearty is one way to describe it; heavenly is another.
The other side of sustenance for dinner
It’s 7pm and I’m feeling indulgent enough – after a fascinating visit to 180-year-old silversmith shop Jarosinski & Vaugoin – to splash out on a 12-course meal.
A far cry from the meat-heavy mains that dominated Viennese menus until a few years ago, Jola along Salzgries 15 is an haute cuisine restaurant that has been serving all-vegan fare since 2022 – and has a Michelin star to show for it.
Run by “herb specialist” and chef Jonathan Wittenbrink and his partner and restaurant manager Larissa Andres, Jola (a portmanteau of their names) is a tribute to farmers.
“Anyone can cook a duck and one duck dish is not going to be that much better or worse than the other,” says Andres. “Farmers toil on the field all year round, yet the vegetables they harvest for us with so much effort are often forgotten, relegated to a side dish. People just steam them and plonk them down on the table. We are here to prove there can be so much more to veg.”
Prove this they do, by way of wholly unusual but utterly delicious flavour combinations. On the autumnal evening I visit, the 12-course meal includes a tartlet filled with creamy buckwheat, kale and lemon gel; a potato dumpling with smoke-infused tofu and vegan caviar salad; mushroom dim sum with porcini mushroom foam, marinated radish and parsley emulsion; and pumpkin and grilled butternut with jalapeno cream and bisque made with Austrian saffron and pineapple-flavoured winter plums.
Even the vegetables I don’t usually seek out – think beetroot and kale – go down a treat thanks to chef Wittenbrink’s penchant for “experimenting with flowers and wild herbs, some found by the side of the road, to make them edible with an innovative twist”, as Andres puts it.
Dessert is equally eclectic, taking in a plum tart with poppy seed crumble and raspberry gel and served with fig leaf ice cream; and the popular Austrian pairing of vanilla ice cream and pumpkin seed oil served here with a nougat dumpling with hazelnut creme.
Open only for a dinner service from Wednesday through Saturday, Jola offers set menus starting from €185.
Substitute: If you’re not in the mood for a multi-course menu or looking for more subsidised fare, check out Wrenkh, a vegetarian eatery along Bauernmarkt 10, open all days save for Sunday from 11am to 11pm.
A must-try here is mushroom schnitzel (€25), a twist on Austria’s national dish, made with crispy oyster mushrooms grown from old coffee grounds, served with lemon mayo made from soy milk instead of eggs, and with a simple side of potatoes with freshly churned butter and parsley.
And if you’d rather a Michelin-starred meal with meat and seafood, check out Edvard, the zero-waste restaurant at the excellent Anantara Palais Hansen Vienna Hotel. While the menu changes seasonally, with a five-course meal starting from €150, the scope of dishes include: Austrian salmon with pumpkin and saffron; oxtail with beef tea; venison with honey and chestnut; and pikeperch with hispi cabbage and harissa.
It's 10pm. Most kitchens are shut – but I am satiated.
