Restaurants in Vienna
Steirereck, 1st District
The Viennese – no, Austrian – prototype address for fine dining. Heinz Reitbauer’s combination of bacon, bananas and caviar is a must-try. Sommelier René Antrag’s wine recommendations (incidentally, he also makes wine himself) are as individually tailored to the guest as they are world-class in the truest sense of the word. The whole dining experience is embedded in an elegant ambience and light-flooded architecture, which is particularly beautiful in early summer, accompanied by the perfectly choreographed service led by Birgit Reitbauer.
Reznicek, 9th District
Cordon bleu, a nearly-vanished dish from the bygone era of the economic miracle, has been brought back to life by Julian Lechner. Everyone is talking about this hit of an elegant, hearty dish that is right in tune with the spirit of the times. And they are talking even more about Simon Schubert’s fantastic selection of wines, which he presents confidently and with elegant ease. The setting: an old, highly polished inn offering great ambience and acoustics as if it were Naples. Many winegrowers love Reznicek as a venue for various presentations. In addition to cordon bleu, the seasonally changing menu includes sweetbreads in vichyssoise with Périgord truffles, tongue with mustard seeds and cabbage or quail stuffed with buttered potato purée in the Robuchon style.
The Glass Wing, 1st District
A new player downtown. Alexandru Simon – of Romanian extraction, born in France and educated in Switzerland – creates a rather eclectic menu with top-quality ingredients. Carabinero prawns with sauce crafted from the crustacean’s own head is not often found in Vienna. Culinary options are accompanied by a naturally young, but extremely varied wine list, selected with utmost care by an equally young sommelier. The wine list is also available to guests in the cosy bar, which overlooks the Staatsoper.
Harald Brunner im Servitenviertel, 9th District
Beautifully situated in the Servitenviertel, this address offers a mixture of pub and bistro. Fans of evergreen Viennese chef Harry Brunner know what to expect here: classic old-fashioned cuisine, fine sauces, very good fish; a bit of Vienna, sometimes a bit of Asia and – in keeping with the genius loci – now also a bit of France. He opens the meal serving scallops with chips (or French fries if you’re American), continues with sweetbreads and duck tongues followed by souffléed crêpes suzettes. Zwiebelrostbraten (beef roasted with onions), Grammelknödl (dumplings made from pork rinds) and meat dumplings are of course also available. A small wine list is currently being developed. Open the whole live-long day on Sundays, which is unusual in Vienna.
Restaurant Eckel, 19th District
Guests from abroad who are taken to Eckel for the first time are consistently enthusiastic, for the ambience and cuisine are unrivalled. Their garden is one of the most beautiful in the city for outdoor seating, an oasis when it’s hot outside. Viennese classics of the home & hearty kind are on the menu and on the plate. At the age of seventy, Maria Eckel is still in the kitchen every day and her roast veal kidney is just as irresistible as the baked prawns with tartar sauce or the Marie Louise soufflé omelettes with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. The wine list features a who’s who of Austria’s champions league alongside lovely bottles from France.
Fuhrmann, 8th District
Herman Botolen, one of the city’s most profound wine connoisseurs and sommeliers, runs this small Francophile pub in the Eighth District, and it enjoys an excellent reputation. He now features Mike Feierabend as head chef, who proved at Walter Bauer how a good chef must cook with great wines: Restrained creativity, reliable preparations and quality, good sauces. Everything that’s famous in Burgundy or Bordeaux is on the menu here and Botolen knows Austrian wine like the back of his hand. And you don’t have to drink DRC here; there are also modestly priced alternatives (as there always are if the sommelier knows his/her stuff).
Palais Coburg, 1st District
Compared with Vienna’s typically trendy wine bars, this place seems out of date. Think ‘three-piece suits instead of T-shirts...’ Nevertheless, it is a world to discover for yourself, a universe of a wine cellar with galaxies from Bordeaux, constellations from Burgundy, an entire solar system (including moons) from Austria and Italy – in fact wines from just everywhere. To call the cellar impressive is a laughable understatement. It’s also great to see how many lesser-known, (and frankly quite affordable) bottles have been smuggled in among the high-enders. In the Silvio Nickol restaurant, the eponymous chef serves some of Vienna’s best cuisine, which goes wonderfully well with Coburg’s wines: Colourful and imaginative, but never loud or violating the laws of harmony. Wine Spectator Award – in fact, all the awards that have ever been presented.
Tian, 1st District
No meat is served here, but anything otherwise imaginable can be! Paul Ivic organises this bucolic dining experience in his kitchen with the best of seasonal vegetables. His credo: a piece of broccoli is as valuable as caviar. His creations with a little dash of Japan are as convincing as they are delicious. Plus: a wine list that has everything an oenophile could wish for, ranging from Arnaud Ente from Burgundy to Sepp Muster in the Südsteiermark. And by the way: Tian offers one of the best alcohol-free dining accompaniments in town.
Gasthof zum Renner, 19th District
Not a gourmet restaurant and there’s no remarkable wine list, but a piece of old Vienna. Here you can eat boiled beef or Viennese meat pastries and pancakes. It’s like being transported back to the days of Graham Green and The Third Man.
O boufés, 1st District
Konstantin Filippou’s second restaurant scores top points with its casual, cosmopolitan cuisine, incorporating a few references to his second home in Greece, as well as one of the best wine lists in the city. Originally a hot spot on the natural wine scene, the restaurant now also stocks top Burgundies, small champagne houses and insider tips from all over the world. And the service is excellent. Not undeservedly one of the favourites on the Viennese fine dining scene.
nineOfive, 4th District
You can also drink more than beer or Soave with pizza from Naples, a dish that is now competing with Wiener Schnitzel in Vienna in terms of popularity. The wine list at this small restaurant near the Naschmarkt is really something special, and the concept is familiar from the various nineOfives in German-speaking lands. Even before it opened it was being passed around as a hot tip in wine connoisseur circles.
MAST, 9th District
This is without doubt one of the best and most expertly stocked addresses for wine in the city. Matthias Pitra and Steve Bretzke have put together a selection of wines where one thing above all else applies: quality beats ideology. Organic is a matter of course. Natural wine can be included, but ‘natural’ is not a requirement. The selection of champagnes and sparkling wines is remarkably comprehensive, though mainstream is avoided, and this also applies to the rest of the list. In addition, the cuisine fits in nicely with the rather Nordic-purist ambience of the restaurant and offers much more than just a few interchangeable accompaniments to go with the wine – in fact quite the opposite.
Stern, 11th District
In the working-class district of Simmering – some twenty minutes by taxi from the Hofburg Palace – the visitor will find a beautifully dressed-up pub with some of the best Viennese cuisine in the city. The offal on offer is superb: baked tripe, brains with egg, veal liver... One can order Wiener Schnitzel here with confidence, as the quality ranks far above the Viennese average. Forget the restaurants that try to attract customers with the Schnitzel on their signpost – this is the place to eat. But above all, and this is really new: the wine list is a real hit (white Beaujolais!).
Buchecker & Sohn im Gußhaus, 4th District
Seems like an insider’s tip; it hardly appears in any travel guide, but is always crowded. Their regulars don’t come here because of the beauty of this Viennese pub, but because of the cuisine of Franz Buchecker, a veteran of the city and an ingenious connoisseur of Viennese cookery. He knows what his guests love. His tartare with toast, his beef bouillon or the Prague-style tripe soup are just as great as beef roulade or stuffed veal breast. Despite the almost frighteningly large portions, nobody hardly ever leaves a single bite. The wine list keeps pace with the cuisine, and leans more toward the classic Austrian side.
www.gasthaus-bucheckerundsohn.at
Mraz & Sohn, 20th District
In short: one of the best wine lists in Vienna and one of the most exciting culinary portfolios in the German-language sphere. Lukas and Markus Mraz offer cuisine that is carefully thought out and choreographed, but on the plate it’s like gustatory jazz. With a reputation that extends far beyond its borders, plus two Michelin stars, reservations at Mraz & Sohn take between three and four months of lead time. Either one has their table reserved now or knows someone who does... Or perhaps book now for VieVinum 2026.
Vasco, 1st District
Mediterranean mix in the historic centre of Vienna. Here on the Franziskanerplatz, one can taste the sunny south in the form of dishes from Spain, Portugal, Italy and France – chef Vespucci has worked in Sardinia, Spain and Portugal. House-style ceviche, risotto with courgette and prawns or rabbit in a white wine sauce sound even more tempting in the national languages of the recipes’ origins.
Gasthaus Pöschl, 1st District
Hermann Czech once used literally every square centimetre to accommodate as many guests as possible in this tiny restaurant. One of the loveliest inns in the city, and totally timeless. And the dishes on offer are somehow timeless as well. Choices range from matjes herring Hausfrauenart to Serbian Reisfleisch, from fried chicken to veal schnitzel with rice. The restaurant was the culinary creative outlet of Andrea Karrer, who ran it with her husband, actor and restaurateur Hanno Pöschl. The team is still largely the same, although Karrer and Pöschl have retired.
Meierei im Stadtpark, 1st District
Upstairs on the first floor is Steirereck, one of Austria’s best restaurants, while beautifully situated on the ground floor one finds the Meierei, which has long since developed from a milk bar with a large selection of cheeses and cream strudel into a grown-up restaurant where one can enjoy breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner in a light-flooded ambience. The veal Beuscherl (a classic Austrian concatenation of available offal) and beef tartare are fantastic, as are the boiled black pudding pockets with lentils or a light fennel salad with marinated salmon trout and oranges. For dessert there is, of course, Kaiserschmarrn.
Brösl, 2nd District
Another one of those zeitgeisty pubs that have swept away the dust of history and are currently booming in Vienna. It’s the Viennese equivalent of Parisian bistronomy. At Brösl, you can enjoy modern, unconventional cuisine in an authentic pub atmosphere. Brösl features quite a number of vegetarian dishes, in keeping with the preferences of a younger clientele. Fish and meat are the exception.
Sattlerei, 2nd District
In this contemporary setting one finds a style of cuisine that cultivates so-called culinary modernity (onion with hazelnuts and mushrooms, sea bass ceviche, eel as brandade with ponzu caviar), but also dares to try classic steaks and offers a great wine list. In the wine bar, guests can also enjoy the wine on its own – from Pittnauer to Tement, from Schloss Gobelsburg to Faiveley.
Vinotheques, cafés, wine bars
The Wine Rebellion, 7th District
As in many big cities, ‘natural’ wine in all its manifold variety is also in vogue in Vienna, especially among the younger set. Felix Neubauer runs this bar, and no wine seems too unusual for him to pour. Guests can fortify themselves with hearty dishes prepared by an internationally savvy chef, and there is also a vinotheque.
Café Florianihof, 8th District
Reznicek proprietors Simon Schubert and Julian Lechner discovered their love for the classic Viennese coffee house in autumn 2023 and have taken over this veritable archetype of a Wiener Kaffeehaus, retaining the ambience but adapting the cuisine and drinks on offer to the tastes of the times. A magnificent small menu. Start the day with a champagne breakfast and avoid the brand-names everybody knows – here one can do this in style. The wine selection is exceptional, and not just in comparison with other cafés.
Espresso Burggasse, 7th District
This bar with its marvellous 1950s signage dates back to the time when espresso bars in Vienna began to compete with the traditional coffee houses. It is now one of the hippest natural wine locals in the city – perhaps also because the DJs who regularly spin here are in consistently fine form.
Heunisch & Erben, 3rd District
Here, two wine lovers have fulfilled a dream for themselves – and their guests. One of the most expansive wine lists in the city, plus a considerable selection of top wines by the glass. Here the overview regarding the work of Austria’s winegrowers is almost encyclopaedic. The cuisine is streamlined, free of ideology but full of ideas and without compromising on the choice of ingredients.
weinskandal rundbar, 7th District
It is customary in Austria to say that by the time a trend reaches Vienna, it is already dead. But the trend remains in full swing toward bars appealing to the young with their concentrated design and atmosphere – more like a comic book cover than a painting, where everything revolves around natural wines – and weinskandal is one of the best proponents of this trend. The wine bar as home of the noble gesture is a thing of the past: here it’s a party.
www.weinskandal.at/pages/rundbar
Café Kandl, 7th District
It is safe to say that pet nat and wines from biodynamic winegrowers have now arrived in the mainstream, at least in cities. Kandl is an expression of this development. Instead of foie gras, there is faux gras, a pâté made from mushrooms and radicchio. Grilled leek heart comes with ajo blanco and hazelnuts. As the restaurant is very small, you should arrive punctually for your reserved table and also realise that you won’t be able to keep it for the entire evening.
Pub Klemo, 5th District
The place to talk wine and drink fine, not-too-expensive Burgundy. There are also exciting new wines from Austria and from the Jura that one can enjoy here. Plus a small, not particularly earth-shattering range of dishes. This is the place to stop time and forget about what comes next. One of the city’s good, reliable wine bars that has somehow fallen out of time.
WEIN & CO
A really good deal: choose a promising bottle on the sales floor and enjoy it with friends in the bar for a modest surcharge. There is also a wide and attractive range of wines served by the glass, from simple Veltliner to clever discoveries from Tuscany or the Rhône. And one doesn’t have to be satisfied with simple antipasti. It is not without reason that their croque monsieur enjoys an excellent reputation among the city’s foodies. The shop itself offers an impressive range of olive oils, spices, vinegars and more. Plus a fine, small selection of alcohol-free beverages.
Sausage stands
Alles Wurscht, 1st District
Bread from the Öfferl bakery, which is particularly popular in Vienna at the moment, kimchi instead of coleslaw, fermented curry ketchup... And the sausages or Ochsenleberkäse, for a couple of examples – at this urban sausage stand run by a proprietor trained to the pinnacle of the culinary arts – are not to be missed either. There is also Bosna – the classic double Bratwurst, brought in from Salzburg – and certain daily specials such as baked fish on Fridays, which is quite unusual for a classic sausage stand. But then again, this is no classic sausage stand.
Zum scharfen René, 1st District
Culinarily speaking, what is hot in English is sharp in German... Sausages are boiled in beef broth to give them an enhanced element of umami. There is also an extra portion of sharpness here, in the form of various chilli spices. Just the thing to revitalise you after a demanding wine tasting session...
Champagner bars
Champagne Characters, 2nd District
Not far from the fashionable market in the Karmeliterviertel neighbourhood, this bar is still an insider tip and is dedicated to discoveries in champagne. And anyone who thinks they know everything will be amazed here. Fair prices, regular tastings.
Le Cru, 1st District
Vienna’s loveliest and best-stocked champagne bar. With a view of the spire of St Stephen’s Cathedral, one can taste and drink the wines of small champagne growers at a large high table. Don’t worry: there is also plenty of seating, though nothing to eat but puff pastry sticks. A pub to make even the most Parisian of Parisians envy Viennese city dwellers.
Capsule, 1st District
Tucked away deep in the thoroughfare know as Graben, this bar scores top points with atmosphere and quality. After the third bottle, some folks might be craving a fine truffle ham toast, which is also available here. One can also expect expert advice and some outdoor seating. Guided tastings for larger groups are organised regularly. Check their annual calendar for more information about the programmes.
Heurige – the classic Viennese wine taverns
Mayer am Pfarrplatz, 19th District
A traditional Grinzing address in contemporary raiment. Instead of visiting the Capuchin Crypt or Belvedere, take the tram # 38 from Schottentor to the end of the line and drink wine that grows within Vienna’s city limits with Backhendl (fried chicken) or Grammelknödel. The Mayer Buschenschank am Nussberg, which is open in summer (offering a simpler selection, but nevertheless with goodies such as Alpine caviar or hummus with sheep’s cheese), and the Pfarrwirt in the neighbourhood of the Heuriger, where you can take a seat in one of the most beautiful garden settings in Vienna, are also part of the business. The establishment used to be called Zur schönen Aussicht (with the beautiful view), which says a lot.
Zahel, 23rd District
Recently awarded the Demeter seal of approval, the Zahel wine estate has always been an integral part of the Viennese wine scene. The traditional wine tavern on Mauer's main square also offers a fine buffet: one simply must try the baked meatballs with potato salad.
Wieninger am Nussberg, 19th District
Fritz Wieninger is one of the most important and influential Viennese winegrowers of modern times. He spearheaded the renaissance of the Gemischter Satz – a blend of different grape varieties grown together and harvested together in a single vineyard, then fermented together – which was long undervalued, its potential for excellence unrecognised. Wieninger has been working biodynamically for a long time; his Chardonnays and red wines (Pinot) can be found on Austria’s best wine lists. And all this can be enjoyed in fine weather with a compelling view of Vienna. In an open-air setting, where the ingenious Sigi Machatschek cooks and the food is served to guests from a little wooden hut.
Restaurants & inns – not far from Vienna
All the establishments we have listed here for readers and VieVinum attendees can be easily reached by train.
Floh, Langenlebarn
Josef Floh can be described as one of the most innovative restaurateurs in the country and yet, as he says, he has always remained landlord of a pub that is open in the afternoon for local people to meet, chat and play cards. These guests may not even notice one of the best wine lists in the country, but others do, travelling from far and wide to Langenlebarn to take advantage of the painstakingly chosen wine selection. In addition, Josef Floh cooks a strictly regional, colourful cuisine with lots of vegetables and a little Austrian country classicism.
Sodoma, Tulln
The Sodoma family – now in its second generation – runs this restaurant, which is a prime example of carefully prepared, perfectly flavoured Austrian cuisine. Tiny Grammelknödl, marvellous soups and roast beef with onion, fish of the finest quality, followed by curd cheese dumplings with stewed plums. The list of wines selected chosen by Pepi Sodoma, who is rarely seen himself in the restaurant, is remarkable, with many mature bottles from Austria along with Sodoma’s favourite region, Piedmont.
taubenkobel, Schützen am Gebirge
One of the best-known restaurants in Austria. Nevertheless, it should not be missing from a list like this. The aesthetic surroundings that await guests here are the work of Walter Eselböck, top chef, designer, architect and man of colours and fabrics. His daughter Barbara and son-in-law Alain Weissgerber are the hosts, managing service and kitchen. Weissgerber’s cuisine oscillates between Pannonia, Alsace and Istria, an original expression of the culinary arts and dedicated to purism. About the wine list: It is no coincidence that taubenkobel is one of the most popular destinations for foreign sommeliers. The family also owns Gut Oggau, where Stefanie and Eduard Tscheppe-Eselböck run one of the best-known and finest wine estates on the natural wine scene.
Landhaus Bacher, Mautern in der Wachau
Here, the excursionist will find modern classic haute cuisine, full of wonderful references to Austrian culinary tradition – such as boiled beef ravioli – in between classic French sauces, select ingredients and the freshest quality fish from the Salzkammergut. A total of four menus, including a vegetarian selection. Thomas Dorfer is one of the best chefs in Austria, and the wine cellar is a paradise for lovers of mature wines, Wachau as well as Bordeaux.
