Top end
Skopik & Lohn
A very low-key, classy yuppie resturant near the Karmaliterviertel in Leopoldstadt.
Tenmaya
Traditional Japanese restaurant and setting that serves everything from kaiseki to teppanyaki. Reservations are recommended for this popular restaurant.
Daihachi
Sushi bar popular with business travellers. Serves fresh and tasty fish that comes at a high price.
Procacci
Excellent northern Italian fare with a range of fine specialties. Slightly small portions but an extensive wine list to drown this particular sorrow in. Reservations recommended.
Hollmann Salon
Modern Austrian Cuisine in one of Vienna's most beautiful courtyards from the baroque period.
Artner II
Belongs to a famous winery. Offers creative, fresh fare that tends to be on the lighter side than most Austrian cuisine. Excellent wine cellar, reservations recommended.
Fabios
Italian fish restaurant combined with bar/lounge for Vienna's glitterati. Quality is excellent, but prices are steep.
Plachutta
A very nice restaurant that specializes in beef claimed to be only local and from trusted farmers and has some flavour of traditional Austrian cuisine. Try the Tafelspitz, it comes in a copper pan and still is in the soup it was cooked the soup alone is worth a trip to Vienna. Alternativel, try Backhendl. The chef claims that they prepare more than 100 kg of beef each day. Probably 3 to 5 waiters will be at your disposal. Reservation is recommended.
Artner I
Belongs to a famous winery. Offers creative, fresh fare that tends to be on the lighter side than most Austrian cuisine. Excellent wine cellar, reservations recommended.
Dukai
On Saturday and Sunday they try to combine classiness and a buffet. Impressive standards, you will leave satisfied.
Danube Tower Restaurant
On a sunny day and have a look over Vienna from the rotating restaurant
Ice cream
Eissalon am Schwedenplatz
Maybe the most popular place. You can choose from a lot of different flavors, but it's always crowded and you often have to stand in a queue for a few minutes.
Zanoni & Zanoni Gelateria
In the same district as Eissalon. Popular with Viennese and tourists for its huge â¬2 cones to go.
Tichy
Another famous place for ice cream. Famous for its Eismarillenknödel small dumplings of vanilla ice cream with an apricot core and Himbeereisknödel raspberry core, vanilla ice cream, coating of ground poppy seeds.
Bortolotti
Also worth trying. Ask particularly for the Campari-Orange Icecream or look for other exotic stuff.
You can buy excellent ice cream Eis at a number of places.
| This guide uses the following price ranges for a typical meal for one, including soft drink: | |
| Budget | Below â¬10 |
| Mid-range | â¬10-20 |
| Splurge | â¬20+ |
Viennese restaurant menus offer a bewildering variety of terms for dishes, most of which the visitor will never have heard of and many of which aren't in the brief lists of menu terms included in phrase books. However restaurants that have any foreign patrons at all usually have an English menu, though you may have to ask for it: the phrase "English menu" usually will be understood even by wait staff who don't speak English. A small bilingual dictionary will be useful for trying to decipher menu listings: at least it will enable you usually to determine what sort of food chicken, beef, potato, etc. is concerned, even if you can't tell how it's prepared. Not only savoury but also sweet main dishes are common in Austria.
Viennese restaurant portions tend to be large. Recently many restaurants are including more vegetarian options. Most restaurants have daily specials listed on a chalk board or sometimes on a printed insert in the regular menu. These are usually the best bet, though they may not be on the English menu, so you may have to ask to have them explained or try to translate them yourself.
Smoking
Smoking is ubiquitous in Vienna restaurants. A small red sticker on the door means no-smoking a green means smoking, both mean there is a separate non-smoking section. Even at outdoor tables, neighbors' smoke may be bothersome. It is polite to ask tablemates permission before lighting up after a meal. Everybody smokes everywhere. Even the restaurants with red stickers may have tables where you can't smoke, but next to you people may smoke. Smoking in Austria is not seen as something bad. They have the highest rate in early starters in Europe.
Bread in Viennese restaurants is usually charged as an extra; if there is a basket of it on the table, you'll usually be charged by the piece only if you take some.
Tipping customs are similar to those in Europe and America though tips are slightly smaller; ten percent is usually sufficient in restaurants. Traditionally the way to tip a waiter is to mention the amount of the bill plus tip when you pay; for instance, if the bill is â¬15.50 you could give the waiter a â¬20 note and say "siebzehn seventeen," meaning he is to take out â¬15.50 for the bill, â¬1.50 for the tip, and so give you only â¬3 change. In this situation English numbers will usually be understood. Sometimes in less formal restaurants you can alternatively drop the tip into the money pouch the waiter usually carries.
Credit cards aren't quite as commonly used in restaurants in Vienna as in Northern European countries, so ask if it's important to know before hand.
street food
The traditional Viennese fast food is sausage in all shapes and sizes. You can buy hot sausages and hot dogs at snack bars called "Würstlstand" all over the town. The famous Wiener Würstel is known as "Frankfurter" in Vienna, but many inhabitants prefer Bosna with onions and curry, Burenwurst, and Käsekrainer or "Eitrige" with melted cheese inside.
In addition to this, the local snack culture also includes more ex-Yugoslavian and Turkish varieties of fast food, such as the Döner Kebap, sandwiches of Greek and Turkish origin with roasted meat, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and yogurt and/or hot sauce. Places that sell kebap often sell take-away slices of pizza too.
Good kebaps can be bought at the Naschmarkt. The lower end of the Naschmarkt further away from Karlsplatz or city centre is cheaper than the upper end closer to Karlsplatz, and the right lane facing away from the city centre is reserved for mostly sit-down eateries. Another good place to find snacks especially while going out is Schwedenplatz, also on the U4 and U1 line.
By far the cheapest way to get a fast food meal in Austria and probably the only meal available for just over â¬1 is buying an Austrian sandwich sliced brown bread + ham/cheese + gherkin from a supermarket. Supermarkets with a deli counter Feinkostabteilung will prepare sandwiches to take away at no extra charge. You only pay for the ingredients. There is usually a large selection of meat products, cheese, and bread rolls available here, too. You point at the combination you want, can also mention the max total you can pay, and then pay at the cash register. One of the favorites is the "Leberkässemel", which is like a bigger but less dense version of a high quality hot dog on a bun. There is a nice supermarket,"Spar", that caters towards this idea, with WiFi, off of the U2's MuseumsQuartier train stop. Freshness and quality at the grocery stores are normally better than at a sandwich stand on the street.
Another great way to eat on a budget is at one of Vienna's hundreds of bakeries. They sell anything from cinnamon rolls to pizza for a good price. It's also a great breakfast-on-the-run alternative because they also have coffee/espresso to go. However, most places do have a couple of tables and chairs where you can enjoy your food.
Midrange
If you're staying inside the Ring or to its south, your best bet for dinner is to walk to the Naschmarkt: there are 15-20 restaurants there ignoring the city's imperial interiors, and most are absolutely mid-range i.e. with mains averaging â¬8-15. Most of them are smoker-friendly and packed-and-loud in the evening.