Vienna · Where to eat

Modern Austrian
A glass box grafted onto a 1900s dairy pavilion in the Stadtpark, with the cellar below and a kitchen that grows a good deal of what it serves. Weekdays only, lunch from 11.30 and dinner from 18.30, closed at weekends and on public holidays, which catches out most visitors.
Order: Char cooked in beeswax; the bread and butter trolley, worked through slowly; vegetables and herbs from the roof garden and the farm at Pogusch
Why go: Austria's most decorated kitchen also runs a daytime café in the same building, so the cooking is reachable at two very different prices.
Locals order: Last lunch booking is 12.45 and last dinner booking 21.00; Viennese who only want the trolleys use the Meierei door downstairs instead.
book online or by phone; closed weekends

Creative modern
Juan Amador cooks under brick vaulting in the Hajszan Neumann wine estate out in Grinzing, with a glass wall onto the barrel store. One menu of roughly thirteen courses at €395, and it is a tram-and-bus trip rather than a walk from the centre.
Order: Kiwi with caviar and coconut; langoustine with apple and chorizo; St Pierre with potato salad
Why go: A three-star dining room inside a working Viennese vineyard, which is not a combination anywhere else in Europe offers.
Locals order: Amador's Wirtshaus & Greißlerei shares the courtyard and takes the overflow; it is where locals eat when the dining room is booked out.
book online, weeks ahead

Modern Austrian-Greek
A spare, dark-toned room on the Dominikanerbastei where the evening menu leans almost entirely on fish and shellfish and meat barely appears. Lunch runs Monday and Thursday to Saturday only, kitchen closing at 14.00, with dinner the same days.
Order: Sardine with mussel remoulade and beer radish; red prawn with bouillon noisette, grapefruit and cochayuyo; the seafood-led tasting menu that carries them
Why go: One of the few two-star kitchens anywhere that will serve you a full seafood tasting menu at lunchtime on a Monday.
Locals order: O boufés, the wine bar next door under the same ownership, is where the regulars actually spend their evenings.
reserve by phone or email; closed Tuesday and Wednesday

Creative surprise menu
A plain family restaurant on a Brigittenau side street, father and son cooking, nothing about the room signalling two stars. Dinner only, Monday to Friday from 19.00, closed at weekends.
Order: No menu is published: thirteen small courses, each built on one ingredient, with only the ingredient list given in advance; the wine pairing follows the same logic; the sweets at the end are not announced either
Why go: You cannot read the menu before you sit down, and after thirty years the kitchen has earned that.
Locals order: Tell them your dislikes when you book, not at the table; the whole sequence is built around the ingredient list they send you.
book online; dinner Monday to Friday only

Creative modern
A formal salon in the Palais Coburg with one of Europe's deepest wine cellars beneath it. Tuesday to Saturday, seating only between 18.30 and 20.00, with a smart-casual code that means long trousers and closed shoes for men.
Order: A long tasting menu with no à la carte alternative; the pairings drawn from the Palais Coburg cellar; the sweet courses that close it
Why go: The cellar underneath holds bottles most restaurants only put in photographs, and the sommelier will take you down to it.
Locals order: Ask about the cellar tour when you book rather than on the night; the vaults are the part of the evening people remember.
reservation essential; no walk-ins

Fire-cooked modern
Stefan Doubek and Nora Pein run a small Josefstadt room around an open kitchen with four separate fire sources, and the cooking is deliberately unadorned. Dishes that look plain have often been months in preparation, so do not expect speed.
Order: French duck aged for weeks under koji then grilled hard; the parade of small sweets that ends the meal; whatever the four fires are turning out that week
Why go: Vienna's newest two-star kitchen cooks everything over live fire and refuses to decorate any of it.
Locals order: Sit at the counter facing the fires rather than at a table; the whole point of the room is watching the grill work.
book well ahead; small room

Contemporary Austrian
The fine-dining room of the Anantara Palais Hansen on the Ringstrasse, quiet and low-lit, with Paul Gamauf cooking a vegetable-forward menu and a low-waste policy behind it. Tuesday to Saturday, dinner only, 18.00 to 22.00.
Order: Pike perch and kohlrabi; preserves worked into most courses; a seasonal tasting menu with a juice pairing as well as wine
Why go: A hotel restaurant on the Ring where the vegetables outrank the protein and the juice pairing is not an afterthought.
Locals order: Take the non-alcoholic pairing at least for the first half; it is built course by course rather than poured from a bottle of apple juice.
book via TableCheck or phone

Casual fine dining
A converted corner pub in the ninth district, Wolfgang Zankl-Sertl cooking, the room deliberately understated. Wednesday and Thursday from 19.00, Friday and Saturday from 18.00, and nothing at all on Sunday to Tuesday.
Order: A set menu with no à la carte; vegetables given the same billing as the meat; a sommelier's counter menu that changes faster than the dining room's
Why go: A neighbourhood Beisl that kept its bones and put a star's worth of cooking inside them.
Locals order: The sommelier's table takes walk-ins and is booked by phone or in person only, never online.
book on Zenchef; four nights a week only

Modern Austrian
Sören Herzig cooks in the ground floor of the 1920s Dorotheum-Fünfhaus, a listed former pawnshop in the 15th district whose dining room used to be the auction hall. Industrial proportions, hardwood floors, and a location well outside the usual visitor map.
Order: A tasting menu with a vegetarian version alongside it; the wine list weighted to Austrian growers; the cheese course before the sweets
Why go: A starred kitchen in a former auction hall in Rudolfsheim, twenty minutes and a world away from the Innere Stadt.
Locals order: The 15th is not a district visitors wander into; take the U3 to Schweglerstraße and walk, rather than paying for a taxi both ways.
book ahead; dinner service

Vegetarian fine dining
A calm basement-level room off Himmelpfortgasse, holding both a Michelin star and a green star for its sourcing. Tuesday to Saturday, 18.00 to 23.00, and the phone is only answered between 14.00 and 19.00.
Order: A set menu of six or eight courses, all of which can be made vegan; signature dishes offered as paid supplements; stocks, gels and ferments doing the work meat would elsewhere
Why go: The vegetarian restaurant that made Vienna stop treating vegetarian food as a concession.
Locals order: Add one or two of the supplement dishes rather than upgrading the menu length; they are where the kitchen shows off.
book online; dinner Tuesday to Saturday

Vegan fine dining
Jonathan Wittenbrink cooks and Larissa Andres runs the floor in a very small room on Salzgries, close enough to the Danube canal to walk it afterwards. The size of the place is the constraint: there are not many seats and they go early.
Order: A seasonal set menu, entirely plant-based; regional produce pushed through fermentation and long cooking; a compact wine list read out rather than handed over
Why go: A Michelin star for cooking with no animal products at all, in a room with fewer seats than most bars.
Locals order: Two people run the whole operation, so a late cancellation genuinely hurts; if plans change, ring rather than emailing.
book online; very few tables

Contemporary Latin American
Judith Lergetporer and Diego Briones run a warm, informal room on Gußhausstraße behind the Karlskirche. Wednesday to Sunday, 18.00 to 23.00, but last kitchen orders are at 19.30, which is far earlier than the closing time suggests.
Order: A tasting menu drawn from Latin American cooking; masa and chilli work done in-house; the pairing built around the same flavours
Why go: The name is Tyrolean dialect for together and the food is Latin American, which tells you most of what you need to know about the place.
Locals order: Book the 18.00 sitting; arrive at 19.15 and the kitchen will already be closing on you.
book by phone or email; last orders 19.30

Reduced modern
Fabian Günzel cooks in a minimalist Mariahilf room with brick arches overhead and solid wood tables, everything visible from every seat. The reduction is the point: few components, no garnish for its own sake.
Order: A short set menu with an open kitchen in full view; a vegetarian line running in parallel; a wine list curated rather than comprehensive
Why go: The most stripped-back plate in Vienna, in a room that has removed everything it can and kept the arches.
Locals order: Ask for a seat facing the pass; the kitchen is the only decoration and it is deliberate.
book online; small dining room

Austrian day cooking
The informal half of Steirereck, in the old dairy pavilion below the main room, open from 8.00 on weekdays for breakfast and through to 23.00. Closed on Sundays and public holidays; Saturday it shuts at 19.00.
Order: The cheese trolley, which runs to well over a hundred; goulash from the Steirereck kitchen; strudel from the same bakery, still warm
Why go: The cheese cellar of a three-star restaurant, available to anyone who books a table for breakfast.
Locals order: Come at 8.00 on a weekday for breakfast and ask for the cheese trolley anyway; nobody says it has to wait for dinner.
book online; breakfast served until noon

Japanese
A loud, informal room on Praterstraße with the chefs working in plain sight, and the anchor of a small Viennese group that now includes a ramen bar and an izakaya. Monday to Saturday, 11.30 to 22.00, closed Sundays and public holidays.
Order: Sushi rolls made in front of you; yakitori off the grill; gyu don at lunch, when everything comes in bowls
Why go: Vienna's Japanese benchmark for fifteen years, and still cheaper at lunch than most of the sushi around it.
Locals order: Lunch is served in bowls and costs a fraction of the evening plating; the same kitchen, an hour earlier in the day.
book online via SevenRooms; closed Sundays

Wine bistro
Matthias Pitra and Steve Breitzke's wine bistro in the Servitenviertel, holding a Bib Gourmand and a green star. Open Wednesday to Sunday only, with lunch on Wednesday to Friday and evenings all five days.
Order: Whatever the garden and the local farms have that week; a menu that follows the wine rather than the other way round; over a thousand bottles, weighted to organic and natural growers
Why go: A wine list of more than a thousand bottles in a room that seats a few dozen people.
Locals order: Do not order from the list; tell them what you drank last and let them pull something from the cellar.
book ahead; closed Monday and Tuesday

Modern French
On the seventh floor of the MOTTO hotel just off Mariahilfer Straße, green and loose rather than formal, with a roof terrace one floor up. From September the terrace serves drinks only, 15.00 to 22.00.
Order: Classic French dishes rebuilt without the heaviness; breakfast and a business lunch on the same card; drinks on the eighth-floor terrace afterwards
Why go: French cooking with a rooftop over Mariahilf, at Bib Gourmand rather than rooftop prices.
Locals order: Eat on the seventh floor, then go up one more for the terrace; the two are priced completely differently.
book online; groups of seven and over by email

Spanish tapas
A small Spanish room on Gonzagagasse in the first district, run tightly and with limited covers. Monday to Friday only, 17.30 to 23.30, closed at weekends, and large groups are turned away for want of space.
Order: Tapas ordered in rounds rather than all at once; Spanish wines by the glass; a menu short enough to work through in two visits
Why go: A Bib Gourmand for Spanish tapas in a city that mostly serves them badly.
Locals order: The phone line only opens after 16.00 and email bookings are not valid until they write back, which trips up a lot of people.
phone after 16.00 or email; email bookings need confirming

Vegetable sharing plates
A café-bistro-wine bar in Rudolfsheim with about forty-five seats, chef Till cooking almost entirely from regional vegetables and pouring natural wine from Austria and Germany. Evenings Wednesday to Saturday, plus a weekend brunch club from 9.30.
Order: Vegetable plates built for sharing; ferments and preserves from the summer; a seven-course brunch spread at weekends
Why go: A Bib Gourmand for vegetable cooking in the 15th, a district most guides do not bother printing.
Locals order: The weekend Brunch Club is a rotating seven-course sharing menu, not an à la carte brunch; go hungry and go early.
book by phone or email; closed Monday and Tuesday

Vegetarian sharing plates
The relaxed sibling of TIAN, in a Biedermeier house on the Spittelberg lanes, everything served to the middle of the table. Bread comes from Joseph Brot and the wine list is heavily natural, built around Burgenland and Styrian growers.
Order: TIAN Tatar; braised tomato with raspberry vinegar and elderflower; aubergine with hazelnut and green curry, taken as a supplement
Why go: Vegetarian cooking with a Bib Gourmand, in the prettiest set of lanes in the seventh district.
Locals order: Groups of six or more are only served the sharing Chef's Garden menu, so split a larger party in two if you want the card.
online booking only; no phone reservations

Viennese tavern
A Beisl on the Servitengasse pedestrian strip in the ninth, traditional cooking with a lighter hand. Open daily from noon to 23.00 with warm food from 12.00 to 22.00, which is longer than almost any comparable kitchen in the city.
Order: Wiener Schnitzel done properly; the weekly specials chalked up rather than printed; the classics of the Wirtshaus canon with the edges cleaned up
Why go: The rare Viennese tavern that will cook you a proper schnitzel at half past three in the afternoon.
Locals order: Come on a warm evening and take a table outside on the Servitengasse; the street is closed to traffic and the locals treat it as a square.
book online or by phone; open daily

Boiled beef specialist
White cloths, career waiters and a room that fills with Viennese families, business lunches and visitors in roughly equal measure. Open daily 11.30 to 23.30, which makes it one of the few serious kitchens in the centre still cooking late.
Order: Tafelspitz, the boiled beef brought to the table in its broth; Wiener Schnitzel; the range of other beef cuts that most Viennese cannot name either
Why go: Boiled beef is the dish Vienna is actually built on, and this is the room that made the case for it.
Locals order: There are a dozen cuts on the card, not one; the waiters will talk you through them if you ask, and Beinfleisch is the cheaper way in.
book online; open daily

Schnitzel house
The original 1905 room off Wollzeile, a few steps from the Stephansdom, open daily 11.00 to 22.30 with the kitchen stopping at 21.30. The second branch on Bäckerstraße runs later and takes some of the pressure off.
Order: The schnitzel, pounded out wider than the plate; potato salad alongside it; the house wines from the family's own vineyard
Why go: The schnitzel that set the size everyone else in Vienna is now judged against, still served in the room where it started.
Locals order: If Wollzeile is full, walk two minutes to the Bäckerstraße branch, which serves the same schnitzel an hour later into the night.
book online; queues without a booking

Viennese brasserie
Trading on Bognergasse since 1618, with two entirely different personalities: a loud ground-floor bar and brasserie, and a Jugendstil dining room above it. The bar runs daily 8.00 to midnight and needs no booking; the Beletage opens Tuesday to Saturday only.
Order: Hand-sliced ham on bread at the standing bar; open tramezzini; Tafelspitz and schnitzel upstairs in the Beletage
Why go: Four hundred years of trading and it still sells its best food standing up at the bar.
Locals order: Skip the tables. Stand at the counter with a glass of Grüner and a couple of the ham rolls, which is what the neighbourhood has always done.
bar is walk-in; Beletage by phone or online

Heuriger
A Heiligenstadt wine tavern trading since 1683, in the house where Beethoven lodged in 1817. Open daily from noon; there is no à la carte, you queue at the buffet and carry your own plate back.
Order: The hot and cold buffet, paid by weight at the counter; the estate's own Gemischter Satz; live Schrammel music from 19.00
Why go: A working wine estate inside the city limits, in Beethoven's old lodgings, with the musicians starting at seven.
Locals order: Order wine by the Viertel from the table, then go to the buffet yourself; new arrivals sit waiting for a menu that never comes.
book online for a table; buffet is self-service

Open sandwiches
A 1902 counter on Dorotheergasse where you point at what you want and it comes on a small plate. Monday to Friday 8.30 to 19.30, Saturday from 9.00, Sunday and holidays 10.00 to 17.00.
Order: The spreads on dark bread, sold singly: egg and bacon, herring, paprika; a Pfiff of beer, the small glass made to match them; nothing else on the menu at all
Why go: One hundred and twenty years of selling nothing but small open sandwiches, and it is still queued out at lunchtime.
Locals order: Order at least four, they are two bites each, and take the Pfiff rather than a full beer; that is the pairing the place was designed around.
walk in; standing room mostly

Viennese coffee house
A dim, smoke-stained room off Dorotheergasse opened in 1939 in the shell of the 1913 Chatham Bar, with a panelled ceiling the family uncovered in the 1960s. Open until midnight on weekdays and until 1.00 on Friday and Saturday.
Order: Mrs Hawelka's Buchteln, baked and brought out in the late evening; a Melange; a Sturm or a glass of wine, which is more common here than coffee after dark
Why go: The one Viennese coffee house that is better at eleven at night than at eleven in the morning.
Locals order: Come late. The Buchteln only appear in the evening, and that is the entire reason to choose this café over the others.
walk in; shared tables when busy

Viennese coffee house
An 1880 room on Gumpendorfer Straße with the original Thonet furniture and billiard tables still in place, and no pressure to leave. Monday to Saturday 7.00 to 22.00, Sunday 10.00 to 20.00, but closed on Sundays through July and August.
Order: The Sperl Torte; a Melange with the glass of water beside it; a newspaper on a wooden holder, taken for as long as you like
Why go: The least altered of the great Viennese coffee houses, and the only one where you can still play billiards.
Locals order: Order one Melange and stay two hours; nobody will move you on, and that is the actual product being sold.
walk in; no bookings needed

Imperial patisserie
A former imperial and royal confectioner on the Kohlmarkt, trading since 1786, with a glass-walled kitchen so you can watch the work. Open daily 10.00 to 19.00 and it does not take reservations at all.
Order: The Annatorte; the Demel version of the Sachertorte, which is the other side of a famous argument; hot chocolate made properly
Why go: The losing side of the Sachertorte lawsuit, which is why theirs is worth ordering.
Locals order: Stand at the kitchen window for a few minutes before you sit; the pastry work is done in full view and most people walk straight past it.
no reservations; queue at busy hours

Viennese tavern
Trading on Am Heumarkt since 1858, a warren of differently furnished rooms with a beer garden and a cellar vault behind. Monday to Saturday 11.00 to midnight, closed Sundays and public holidays.
Order: Wirtshaus cooking with a modern hand; the lunch menu at under fifteen euros; roast goose through the Ganslwochen in autumn
Why go: A proper 1850s Wirtshaus a hundred metres from the Konzerthaus, at half the price of anything else on that block.
Locals order: Go in October or November for the Ganslwochen; the goose plate is the one thing here Viennese book weeks ahead for.
book online or by email; closed Sundays

Home-style Viennese
Stefanie Herkner's small Wieden Wirtshaus, run on her father's principle that this is a Wirtshaus and not a Gasthaus. Cash only, no cards at all, and the core opening is Thursday and Friday evenings with extra nights released through the online booking system.
Order: Forgotten Viennese dishes off a handwritten weekly card; dumplings made in house, which the owner also teaches; a Martini mixed by the landlady herself
Why go: A Viennese tavern that opens two nights a week, takes no cards, and is booked out anyway.
Locals order: Check the online system before assuming it is shut; extra evenings appear there and nowhere else, and it closes for a long summer break.
cash only; book online, very few nights

Beer garden
A vast Prater beer garden run by the Kolarik family for over a century, open daily 11.00 to 23.00 from 15 March to 31 October and shut all winter. A takeaway counter on the alley side works the same kitchen hours with no wait for a table.
Order: Stelze, the grilled pork knuckle, ordered by weight; Budweiser Budvar poured from the tap; chips fried in front of you at the counter
Why go: Seven months a year, and for those seven months it is where Vienna actually goes to drink outdoors.
Locals order: Order the Stelze by weight for the table rather than one each, and get the chips from the counter, which has its own queue and no table service.
book ahead in summer; closed November to mid-March

Viennese coffee house
A Ringstrasse café opposite the MAK with a 1950s interior rather than a Habsburg one, open daily 8.30 to 22.00. Tables on the terrace cannot be reserved, only those inside.
Order: A Melange with the obligatory glass of water; the weekly lunch card; house-made Mehlspeisen from the counter
Why go: The one grand Vienna café that looks like the 1950s instead of the 1890s, and is all the better for it.
Locals order: Sit in the back room rather than the front; that is where the piano is and where the regulars have always sat.
no terrace bookings; inside tables can be reserved

Sausage stand
The stand between the opera house and the Albertina, run by the Bitzinger family and open daily from 8.00 until 4.00 in the morning. There is nowhere to sit; you eat standing at the shelf with a plastic fork.
Order: The original Wiener Käsekrainer, split and cheese running; Bosna with onions and curry; a bottle of champagne to go with it, which is not a joke
Why go: The only sausage stand in the world with a serious champagne list, positioned exactly where the opera crowd spills out.
Locals order: Order the Käsekrainer with a Pfiff of beer or, if you are coming out of the Staatsoper, the champagne; both are on the board.
walk up; no bookings, open until 4am

Schnitzel house
A plain, wood-panelled room on Neubaugasse founded over fifty years ago and now run by the founder's two daughters. Kitchen Tuesday to Saturday, 10.45 to 21.30, closed Sunday, Monday and public holidays.
Order: The schnitzel, which arrives hanging off the plate; potato salad or chips with it; a box for the half you will not finish
Why go: The cheapest serious schnitzel in Vienna, at a size that still surprises people who have already been warned.
Locals order: Order one between two, or ask for the small portion; almost every table ends up asking for a box.
walk in; closed Sunday and Monday

Café and patisserie
A café stuffed with mismatched furniture and family photographs, staffed largely by pensioners who bake the Mehlspeisen themselves. Two branches: Schleifmühlgasse daily 8.00 to 20.00, Johannesgasse daily 8.00 to 18.00.
Order: Cakes baked by grandmothers on the staff; a Viennese breakfast served all day; the baking courses they run in the same kitchens
Why go: A social enterprise against pensioner isolation that also happens to make the best home-style cake in the city.
Locals order: Ask who baked the slice you ordered; the staff will tell you, and it is the point of the whole operation.
book online; walk-ins queue at weekends