Where to Eat in Vienna: Coffee Houses, Heuriger, Markets, Beisln

The short answer. Vienna eats in four kinds of place. Go to a coffee house for cake and a long sit, a Heuriger for the wine and a buffet, a market for stalls and a Saturday morning, and a Beisl or an old inn for schnitzel and pork knuckle. Pick one of each and you’ve covered it.

Roam Vienna lists only places it’s found on their own page, and hours are printed as the operator prints them. It doesn’t rank restaurants, and there’s no price where a page doesn’t print one. The places are on the map. For coffee houses, there’s a separate coffee house guide.

Coffee houses

You get cake, coffee and a table for as long as you want. Viennese coffee house culture is on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list, per vienna.info. Start with the six in the coffee house guide. Others on the map include Café Landtmann beside the Burgtheater, Café Weimar (open since 1900), Café Savoy on the Linke Wienzeile, and Demel, a confectioner on Kohlmarkt that has sold cakes and chocolate since the Habsburg era.

Heuriger

A Heuriger is a wine tavern that serves wine from its own vineyards, usually with a buffet. The tourist board’s Heuriger page says you recognise a genuine one by the pine bush and an “Ausg’steckt” sign, which also tells you it’s open. Smaller ones open only in the warm season or on set dates, called Aussteckzeiten, so you’ll want to check the tavern’s website. The word “heurige” also means the current vintage, which by tradition may be served until 11 November, St Martin’s Day. In Vienna, Heuriger and Buschenschank are mostly used for the same thing.

The tourist board names these areas for Heurigen.

• Neustift, Heiligenstadt, Sievering, Grinzing and Nussdorf for the classic taverns.
• Oberlaa, Ottakring and Hernals for taverns and vineyards closer in.
• Stammersdorf, Strebersdorf and Jedlersdorf north of the Danube.
• Mauer, which the page lists for smaller taverns.

From the data, three with their own hours:

• Heuriger Mayer am Pfarrplatz is a traditional Heuriger in the Beethovenhaus in Heiligenstadt. Its page says to check there for opening times, so it isn’t listed here.
• Heuriger Fuhrgassl-Huber is a winery with a Buschenschank in Neustift am Walde. In winter it prints Tuesday to Thursday 2 pm to 11 pm, Friday 2 pm to midnight, Saturday and Sunday noon to 10 pm, and closed Monday.
• Weingut Wieninger is a wine estate in Stammersdorf with a Heuriger. Its site says it is open on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, so check the hours before you go.

Grinzing is the village that became a popular Heurigen district in the nineteenth century, and the Stammersdorfer Kellergasse is a lane of wine cellars. Tram D runs out to the wine village of Nussdorf, per vienna.info.

Markets

Vienna’s city markets print a “maximum” set of hours. Stalls usually run Monday to Friday 6 am to 9 pm and Saturday 6 am to 6 pm, and individual stalls and restaurants keep their own.

The Karmelitermarkt is busy on Saturday morning, and it’s a good brunch stop with its restaurants and food stalls. The Brunnenmarkt runs to the Yppenplatz and mixes Middle Eastern, Balkan and Austrian stalls. The two districts are Leopoldstadt and Ottakring.

Beisln, inns and classics

Figlmüller Wollzeile. A restaurant best known for its large Wiener Schnitzel.

Griechenbeisl. A historic inn in the old town between Fleischmarkt and Griechengasse.

Schweizerhaus. It’s a big Prater beer garden known for its roast pork knuckle.

Amerlingbeisl. A tavern on Stiftgasse in Neubau, open Monday to Sunday noon to 2 am, as it prints.

Siebensternbräu. A brewpub with its own beers on Siebensterngasse.

Where to stay for eating

The Naschmarkt and the Spittelberg lanes are a short walk from Wieden, Mariahilf and Neubau, and the Karmelitermarkt is in Leopoldstadt. See where to stay in Vienna for the Bezirke, and things to do for what to see between meals.

Places in this guide

Photos show the actual places, licensed under Creative Commons and credited to their photographers.

Café Weimar Alsergrund Photo: C.Stadler/Bwag / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) Café Savoy Mariahilf Photo: Andreas Faessler / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) Demel Innere Stadt Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Gryffindor assumed (based on copyright claims). / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain) Naschmarkt Flohmarkt Mariahilf Photo: Sandor Somkuti Karmelitermarkt Leopoldstadt Photo: Peter Gugerell / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)