The plates that define Vienna: what they are, and where to eat the canonical version.
The plates that define Vienna. what they are, where they came from, and where to eat the canonical version.
A veal cutlet hammered paper-thin, dredged in flour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs, then fried in clarified butter until the breading lifts off the meat in a golden hood. The signature plate of the city, served with potato salad, lemon and lingonberries.
Where: Figlmueller Wollzeile, Lugeck Figlmueller, Meissl & Schadn, Plachutta Wollzeile, Skopik & Lohn
Price: EUR 18 to 32
A piece of boiled beef, typically from the rump cap, slowly poached with root vegetables and served in copper pans with a clear broth, apple horseradish, chive sauce, roesti and creamed spinach. The plate Emperor Franz Joseph is said to have eaten daily.
Where: Plachutta Wollzeile, Plachutta Hietzing, Restaurant Rote Bar, Zum Schwarzen Kameel, Gasthaus Ubl
Price: EUR 24 to 34
A two-layer chocolate sponge cake split with apricot jam, enrobed in a thin, glossy chocolate glaze and served with a quenelle of unsweetened whipped cream. The most photographed Viennese dessert, and the subject of a long legal-history dispute between Hotel Sacher and Demel.
Where: Cafe Sacher Wien, Demel, Cafe Landtmann, Cafe Central, Kurkonditorei Oberlaa
Price: EUR 8 to 12 a slice
Paper-thin strudel pastry stretched until you can read newsprint through it, wrapped around grated apples, raisins, cinnamon, sugar, and toasted breadcrumbs. Baked golden and served warm with vanilla sauce or whipped cream.
Where: Demel, Cafe Landtmann, Vollpension, Cafe Sperl, Cafe Korb
Price: EUR 6 to 9 a slice
A pork sausage with cheese pockets distributed through the meat, cooked on a roller grill until the casing blisters and the cheese inside melts to a near-liquid. Served with a Semmel, mustard, and a Pfiff beer at any of the city's Wuerstelstaende.
Where: Bitzinger Wuerstelstand Albertina, Wuerstelstand am Hohen Markt, Wuerstelstand LEO
Price: EUR 5 to 8
A beef gulasch slow-cooked with onions, sweet paprika and marjoram into a thick, dark sauce. Served with a Semmel (white roll) and a fried egg on top in the Beisl tradition, or with bread dumplings as the dinner plate.
Where: Cafe Anzengruber, Gasthaus Poeschl, Gasthaus Wolf, Plachutta Wollzeile, Glacis Beisl
Price: EUR 14 to 19
Sweet yeasted dumplings, baked together in a hot oven so they pull apart in fluffy squares, filled with apricot jam (Marillenmarmelade) and served from 20:00 onwards with vanilla sauce poured over the top.
Where: Cafe Hawelka, Cafe Landtmann, Cafe Sperl
Price: EUR 6 to 9
A field-blend white wine grown and pressed from multiple grape varieties planted together in a single vineyard, then harvested and fermented as one wine. Light, dry, food-friendly, and tied to Vienna's specific Heiligenstadt and Nußberg soils.
Where: Heuriger Sirbu, Pub Klemo
Price: EUR 4 to 6 a glass at a Heuriger
A whole apricot wrapped in a soft potato or quark dough, boiled, then rolled in golden butter-toasted breadcrumbs and dusted with icing sugar. Served warm with vanilla sauce as the canonical July Mehlspeise on the Beisl carte.
Where: Vollpension, Cafe Landtmann, Gasthaus Poeschl, Plachutta Wollzeile
Price: EUR 8 to 14
A thick, fluffy pancake torn into bite-sized pieces in the pan and caramelised with butter and sugar, served with stewed plums (Zwetschkenroester), apple sauce, or apricot compote. The plate Kaiser Franz Joseph is said to have favoured.
Where: Lugeck Figlmueller, Figlmueller Wollzeile, Cafe Landtmann, Plachutta Wollzeile
Price: EUR 12 to 18
A veal cutlet hammered paper-thin, dredged in flour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs, then fried in clarified butter until the breading lifts off the meat in a golden hood. The signature plate of the city, served with potato salad, lemon and lingonberries.
History: The Wiener Schnitzel is documented in Viennese cookbooks from the late 19th century but is older as a court-cuisine technique; the breaded cutlet may have travelled from northern Italy in the cotoletta alla milanese tradition. The veal version is the Austrian protected name; the pork version (Schnitzel Wiener Art) is the cheaper everyday plate. Figlmueller on Wollzeile has hammered the dish since 1905, Lugeck and Meissl & Schadn cook the veal version, Plachutta the canonical veal at Wollzeile.
Where to try it: Figlmueller Wollzeile, Lugeck Figlmueller, Meissl & Schadn, Plachutta Wollzeile, Skopik & Lohn
Watch out for: Gluten, Egg
A piece of boiled beef, typically from the rump cap, slowly poached with root vegetables and served in copper pans with a clear broth, apple horseradish, chive sauce, roesti and creamed spinach. The plate Emperor Franz Joseph is said to have eaten daily.
History: Tafelspitz was a court-cuisine dish under the Habsburgs and became a bourgeois Sunday lunch in 19th-century Vienna. Each cut of beef has its own name and use: Schulterscherzel for tenderness, Beinfleisch with the bone in, Kruspelspitz with cartilage. Plachutta opened his Wollzeile restaurant in 1986 specifically to cook the dish, with twelve cuts named on the menu. The dish remains the canonical Viennese boiled-beef tradition.
Where to try it: Plachutta Wollzeile, Plachutta Hietzing, Restaurant Rote Bar, Zum Schwarzen Kameel, Gasthaus Ubl
A two-layer chocolate sponge cake split with apricot jam, enrobed in a thin, glossy chocolate glaze and served with a quenelle of unsweetened whipped cream. The most photographed Viennese dessert, and the subject of a long legal-history dispute between Hotel Sacher and Demel.
History: Franz Sacher invented the Sachertorte in 1832, aged 16, while filling in as the apprentice pastry chef in Prince Metternich's kitchen. The recipe was perfected by his son Eduard at Demel before the family opened Hotel Sacher in 1876. A long legal dispute between Hotel Sacher and Demel was settled in 1963: Hotel Sacher won the right to the 'Original Sachertorte' name and the round seal; Demel uses a triangular 'Eduard-Sacher-Torte' seal to this day. Both versions are still made by hand at the respective addresses.
Where to try it: Cafe Sacher Wien, Demel, Cafe Landtmann, Cafe Central, Kurkonditorei Oberlaa
Watch out for: Gluten, Egg, Dairy
Paper-thin strudel pastry stretched until you can read newsprint through it, wrapped around grated apples, raisins, cinnamon, sugar, and toasted breadcrumbs. Baked golden and served warm with vanilla sauce or whipped cream.
History: Strudel pastry travelled across the Habsburg empire from the Ottoman baklava tradition, taking hold in Vienna and Budapest in the 17th and 18th centuries. The paper-thin dough is the test of every Konditorei. Vollpension on Schleifmuehlgasse bakes by grandmothers from a recipe family tradition; Demel and Cafe Landtmann both serve the classical version on a silver tray.
Where to try it: Demel, Cafe Landtmann, Vollpension, Cafe Sperl, Cafe Korb
Watch out for: Gluten, Egg, Dairy
A pork sausage with cheese pockets distributed through the meat, cooked on a roller grill until the casing blisters and the cheese inside melts to a near-liquid. Served with a Semmel, mustard, and a Pfiff beer at any of the city's Wuerstelstaende.
History: The Krainer Wurst itself dates from the Slovenian-Austrian border region of Krain (Carniola). The cheese-injected Kaesekrainer was developed in the 1970s by Austrian sausage producers and quickly became the most-ordered Vienna street-food plate. The blistered casing and molten cheese earned the affectionate nickname Eitrige (the pus-y one) in Wiener slang. The Bitzinger, Hoher Markt and Leo Wuerstelstaende all cook the canonical version.
Where to try it: Bitzinger Wuerstelstand Albertina, Wuerstelstand am Hohen Markt, Wuerstelstand LEO
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
A beef gulasch slow-cooked with onions, sweet paprika and marjoram into a thick, dark sauce. Served with a Semmel (white roll) and a fried egg on top in the Beisl tradition, or with bread dumplings as the dinner plate.
History: Gulasch travelled from the Hungarian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and became a defining Viennese Beisl dish by the late 19th century. The Vienna version (Saftgulasch) reduces the sauce thicker than the Hungarian original, and the Fiakergulasch adds a fried egg, frankfurter, and gherkin on top. Cafe Anzengruber's Croatian-Viennese kitchen has cooked one of the city's most-defended versions since 1949.
Where to try it: Cafe Anzengruber, Gasthaus Poeschl, Gasthaus Wolf, Plachutta Wollzeile, Glacis Beisl
Watch out for: Gluten
Sweet yeasted dumplings, baked together in a hot oven so they pull apart in fluffy squares, filled with apricot jam (Marillenmarmelade) and served from 20:00 onwards with vanilla sauce poured over the top.
History: Buchteln came to Vienna from the Bohemian half of the empire, becoming a late-night Wiener Mehlspeise served from the Kaffeehaus oven. Cafe Hawelka on Dorotheergasse has run the canonical version since 1939 to a recipe by Josefine Hawelka, the family kitchen turning them out fresh in the late evening from 20:00 onwards.
Where to try it: Cafe Hawelka, Cafe Landtmann, Cafe Sperl
Watch out for: Gluten, Egg, Dairy
A field-blend white wine grown and pressed from multiple grape varieties planted together in a single vineyard, then harvested and fermented as one wine. Light, dry, food-friendly, and tied to Vienna's specific Heiligenstadt and Nußberg soils.
History: Gemischter Satz was the traditional Vienna vineyard practice for centuries: plant Gruener Veltliner, Riesling, Welschriesling and Pinot Blanc together in one plot, harvest and press in one go. The practice nearly died out in the 1980s, but the WienWein winemakers' association of Doebling and Stammersdorf growers revived it in 2006, securing a DAC protected-origin in 2013. The wine now defines Vienna's wine identity on the Heuriger pour list.
Where to try it: Heuriger Sirbu, Pub Klemo
Watch out for: Sulphites
A whole apricot wrapped in a soft potato or quark dough, boiled, then rolled in golden butter-toasted breadcrumbs and dusted with icing sugar. Served warm with vanilla sauce as the canonical July Mehlspeise on the Beisl carte.
History: Marillenknoedel are a Bohemian-Viennese tradition tied to the Wachau valley's apricot season in July. The dish travels onto every Wiener Beisl carte during the summer apricot weeks. Vollpension on Schleifmuehlgasse runs the canonical home-cook version with quark dough; Steirereck's tasting menu has lifted the dish into a fine-dining course in season.
Where to try it: Vollpension, Cafe Landtmann, Gasthaus Poeschl, Plachutta Wollzeile
Watch out for: Gluten, Egg, Dairy
A thick, fluffy pancake torn into bite-sized pieces in the pan and caramelised with butter and sugar, served with stewed plums (Zwetschkenroester), apple sauce, or apricot compote. The plate Kaiser Franz Joseph is said to have favoured.
History: Kaiserschmarrn (the Emperor's mess) is said to have been served to Franz Joseph in 1854 when a humble shepherd-style pancake was offered to the imperial table. The name stuck. The dish became a Konditorei and Alpine-hut staple. Figlmueller's Lugeck and Cafe Landtmann both cook the canonical Vienna version with raisins; Kurkonditorei Oberlaa serves the Mehlspeise version with stewed plums on the side.
Where to try it: Lugeck Figlmueller, Figlmueller Wollzeile, Cafe Landtmann, Plachutta Wollzeile
Watch out for: Gluten, Egg, Dairy
Peak food season in Vienna is year-round.
Local dining hours: lunch around 12:30, dinner from 19:30.
service is typically included; small extra is welcome but not expected.
If you only have one meal, eat Wiener Schnitzel. It is the dish most associated with Vienna.