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 to eat it: 5 restaurants across 1 city.
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.
Tip from the editors. A bare tremble of stock, never a rolling boil; boiling toughens the beef. Reserve the marrow bones to serve on toast with sea salt as the first course.
This is the TableJourney editorial recipe, modelled on the canonical bistro / counter version. The first place to try the dish in its city of origin is below.
Plachutta on Wollzeile in Vienna is the canonical Tafelspitz address, the boiled-beef pot served in copper pans with rösti, apple horseradish, and chive sauce in a 1010-postcode dining room.
Signature: Tafelspitz, Beuschel
Order: Tafelspitz vom Schulterscherzel; the cut Franz Joseph is said to have favoured.
Tip: Open daily 11:30 to 23:30; the kitchen runs lunch through dinner without a break.
Plachutta Hietzing serves the family's canonical Tafelspitz across town in 1130 Hietzing, an opera-quiet 13th-district room that draws Schoenbrunn locals away from Wollzeile's tourist trail.
Signature: Tafelspitz, Beuschel
Order: Tafelspitz with the full set of sides; the cut of the day is the recommended order.
Tip: A quieter Tafelspitz alternative to Wollzeile, especially at lunch; the 1130 postcode makes parking easier too.
Restaurant Rote Bar inside Hotel Sacher on Philharmoniker Strasse in Vienna serves classic Viennese cuisine in a red-damask room across from the State Opera, with live piano from 19:00.
Signature: Tafelspitz, Wiener Schnitzel, Sachertorte
Order: Sacher's Tafelspitz, followed by the Original Sachertorte for dessert.
Tip: The winter garden seats face the Opera directly; ask for one when booking.
Zum Schwarzen Kameel on Bognergasse in Vienna has stood since 1618, the 1901 Jugendstil dining room and front-of-house Stehplatz for canapés a single Gesamtkunstwerk in the heart of the first district.
Signature: Open-faced sandwiches, Tafelspitz
Order: Two or three of the open-faced canapés from the front-counter glass; eat them standing with a glass of Gruener Veltliner.
Tip: The standing-bar at the front is the quick-lunch entry; the dining room behind takes serious bookings.
Gasthaus Ubl on Pressgasse in Vienna's Wieden has been a family-run Beisl for over fifty years, the green-tiled stove and wood-panelled rooms turning out Zwiebelrostbraten and Schinkenfleckerl to a regulars' crowd.
Signature: Zwiebelrostbraten, Schinkenfleckerl, Tafelspitz
Order: Zwiebelrostbraten with crisp onions; the kitchen's most-ordered plate.
Tip: Cash only; book by phone because the room is almost always full.
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