Vienna on My Plate: A Honest Food Guide to Eating Well in Vienna

Vienna has a reputation for grandeur, but contributor Deborah Kombe discovered that its most memorable moments happened at street level: a brown butter Turkish egg in a buzzing cafe, a Kaiserschmarrn eaten on the pavement, a pizza so enormous it defeated two people. In this food guide, Deborah documents what she ate, where she went, and why a friend who warned her the food would be disappointing now has some reading to do.

A Friend Told Me the Food Would Be Dissapointing 

I’ll be honest with you: Vienna wasn’t on my radar. When I think of a holiday, I think of somewhere more than three hours from the UK, a stretch of sea, reliable sunshine, and food worth writing home about.

City breaks have never been my natural instinct. But my sister and I wanted to go somewhere together and simply enjoy whatever a place had to offer, and Vienna kept appearing on our feeds in a way that was hard to ignore. It looked beautiful, it looked cultured, and it looked like somewhere neither of us had thought to go before. So we went.

Ahead of Vienna, I had exactly two meals planned. Everything else I left to chance. As it turned out, chance had excellent taste, and Vienna made it easy. This is not a city where you need to book three months in advance or spend hours researching before you arrive. Good food is quietly everywhere, if you’re paying attention.

One friend, who travels to Vienna regularly for work, had helpfully informed me before we left that the food would be disappointing. I filed that away and boarded the flight anyway. I messaged him from the trip. I needed to know if he’d been to the same Vienna I had.

I’m a foodie, not in the sense of eating endlessly, but in the sense that a well-seasoned dish, thoughtfully plated, in a room that understands what it’s doing, genuinely moves me. Vienna moved me. Repeatedly. This is my attempt to document that, partly for anyone planning a trip, and partly so that my friend has something to read and reconsider.

Cafe Propeller

Hotel Motto had included Cafe Propeller in their own Vienna guide, describing it as a trendy brunch and coffee spot. One look at the menu and my mind was made up. Turkish eggs have been a weekly staple of mine ever since I first discovered them, and I love seeing how different kitchens interpret the dish. Cafe Propeller’s version promised brown butter and a homemade onion chilli crunch. We were going.

The walk from the hotel took around twenty minutes. My sister and I spent most of it wondering where everyone was and why there was quite so much graffiti covering almost every surface.

In London, graffiti tends to exist in specific pockets, the skate tunnel near Waterloo being a favourite, where it feels intentional, almost secretive, a gift for the curious. Anything outside of those pockets is firmly asbo behaviour. Vienna operates differently.

The graffiti is everywhere and unapologetic, and it took me a little while to recalibrate. I’d later come to understand that this is simply Vienna’s relationship with public art.

The city extends creative freedom across everything, not just its galleries and grand buildings. Once you understand that, it starts to make sense. The graffiti isn’t incidental. It’s consistent with a city that has always been run, at least in spirit, by artists.

Then we arrived at Cafe Propeller and understood something else entirely. Everyone was in the cafes.

The space is genuinely lovely: exposed brick, silver pipes along the ceiling, linen lampshades, green plants, and different shades of wood running across the floor and furniture.

The off-white ceiling had a kind of painted boucle effect that I’d never seen before and immediately wanted to photograph. The place was buzzing. We were lucky to get a window seat when we did.

We both ordered the brown butter Turkish eggs. The homemade onion chilli crunch made all the difference, and I’ve been trying to work out how to recreate it at home ever since.

Freshly squeezed orange juice on the side. European freshly squeezed orange juice, I should clarify, which is categorically superior to anything you’ll find in the UK. I don’t make the rules.

At €11 for the eggs and €4.60 for the juice, it was excellent value. Cafe Propeller gave us exactly what we needed after a scatterbrained morning of early flights and too little sleep. I’d go back without hesitation, next time hopefully when it’s warm enough for the tables to spill out onto the street.

Viva La Mamma

I have a habit of finding a good pizzeria on almost every holiday. La Pizzine in Tulum. Now Viva La Mamma in Vienna.

We hadn’t booked, which turned out to be optimistic. After a full day of being tourists, we arrived hungry and were told there was no space for at least two hours.

We added our names to the waitlist and walked out onto the street, wondering what to do with ourselves. Then the waitress appeared at the door, called my name from halfway down the street, and told us a table had just opened up. I jumped with glee. No exaggeration.

That moment told us everything we needed to know about the place. A quick look at their Instagram afterwards confirmed it: the first pinned video shows five guests who had brought their own chairs to dine on the pavement outside because the restaurant and garden were completely full.

The staff responded by bringing out crates, a tablecloth, and serving them exactly as they would any other table. That’s the energy we felt all evening.

The interior gives a nod to upscale Italian restaurants and American diners. The walls are covered in graffiti, which we’d come to understand by this point was a sanctioned art form in Vienna rather than an act of vandalism. It was a good-looking room.

We both ordered the Queen Margherita, because the sign of a good pizzeria is whether they can get the so-called basic one right. They can. The pizzas were also enormous, and the moment they arrived we knew we weren’t finishing them in one sitting. We tried. We didn’t succeed.

My sister had an Aperol Spritz. I ordered a Limoncello Spritz, which was considerably more bitter than I’d anticipated. Drinkable, but next time I’ll trust my instincts and order the Hugo Spritz. At €9.50 for drinks and €13.50 for the pizza, we left very happy.

I’d go back. Ostensibly to try the beef tartare or a pasta dish. Realistically to order the pizza again.

Demel

Before Demel, there was the National Library. From the city’s shopping centre, a few quiet streets open up almost without warning into something altogether grander. Statues out front, brick pavements, the kind of entrance that makes you slow down before you’ve consciously decided to.

Inside, the usual coolness and silence of an old building settles over you immediately. We were there for an exhibition titled The Global Power of Love, A Journey Through the Centuries, held in the State Hall. Nothing quite prepares you for it. Books on wooden shelves that reach the full height of the ceiling, beautifully old wheeled ladders running along the walls for access, though we weren’t allowed to touch them.

Spiral staircases on each side of the hall facing each other, walnut balustrades decorated with gilded carvings, columns finished in goldwork at the top. Marble statues of Habsburg rulers lining the room, commissioned in 1696 and still standing. A ceiling fresco so detailed it takes a moment to understand what you’re looking at.

It is one of the most beautiful rooms I have ever stood in. Vienna does this repeatedly. It presents you with something extraordinary and then simply gets on with being a city around it.

A short walk from the library, we arrived at Demel to find no queue, which is apparently unusual. The street-side stand serves one thing only: Kaiserschmarrn. We ordered, stepped to one side, and tried it.

Divine is the right word. Think somewhere between a pancake and scrambled eggs, without the egg taste: crisp on the outside, soft and nearly gooey within, served with a spiced plum compote called Zwetschgenröster.

I had briefly convinced myself that the fruit content made this a healthy dessert. I stand by that reasoning. It wasn’t too sweet, the compote wasn’t too tart, and the whole thing made for an exceptional snack while strolling through the centre of Vienna.

Our reaction, apparently, was visible. By the time we’d finished, a significant queue had formed behind us. You’re welcome, Demel. Not that you needed it.

At €7.90, roughly £6.85 for those of us visiting from the UK, it was absolutely worth it. My only regret was not getting the larger portion at €9.50.

Should you visit? Yes, but go twice. Once for the street-side Kaiserschmarrn, ideally mid-stroll with nowhere particular to be. And once again to sit inside the cafe properly and work through their cakes, chocolates, and sweets. If the Kaiserschmarrn is anything to go by, the rest of the menu will not disappoint.

Fenster Café

I am not usually a coffee drinker. Not because I dislike the taste, but because the caffeine sends me bouncing off the walls in a way that is neither productive nor dignified. But when I heard there was a coffee shop serving coffee in chocolate-covered ice cream cones, through a hole in the wall, I made an exception.

To find it, walk down Fleischmarkt and turn at the outdoor seating for Haus mit Muttergottesrelief. A few steps further and you’ll find the opening in the wall. Easy to miss, worth finding.

I may have slightly invented my order. I liked the sound of the Honey Latte Macchiato but wanted salted caramel instead of honey, with oat milk, served in the chocolate cone. The staff obliged. What arrived was essentially a single, elegant dose of diabetes. It was very good.

One practical note: ask for a straw or something to stir with before you walk away. By the time you’ve finished photographing it, and you will photograph it, the syrup will have sunk to the bottom of the cone. Drink it unstirred and the last few sips will be aggressively sweet. Consider yourself warned.

The total came to €19.50, roughly £17. That is, objectively, a lot of money for a single drink. But I said to my sister afterwards that this might be one of the smartest business models I’d seen: no seats, one member of staff, and the most expensive coffee in Vienna. One visit is enough for the experience. It’s also, I suspect, exactly enough caffeine for someone like me.

Chez Bernard

If you’re staying at Hotel Motto, Chez Bernard is already waiting for you a few floors up. If you’re not, it’s worth the trip regardless. The rooftop restaurant holds a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide, a designation specifically recognising good quality and good value cooking, and it earns it.

The ceiling alone, all triangular and diamond-shaped windows catching the light at shifting angles, is reason enough to arrive early for breakfast.

The menu leans fresh and generous: we had the red shakshuka with a pan-fried organic egg and the sourdough toast with poached egg, avocado, and bacon, and because the waiter suggested it and we had no good reason to say no, dessert after breakfast. French toast and a crepe, split between us on the entirely sound logic that sharing two things counts as one each.

We went back for dinner on our last night. The room shifts after dark, candlelit and unhurried, with a DJ playing low enough that you can still hold a conversation. The coq au vin rouge was exactly right.

Breakfast dishes run from €13 to €22, dinner mains from €22 to €46, and there is a cover charge of €4.90 per person worth knowing about before you sit down. We went three times in total. We would have gone a fourth.

Motto Brot

On our last proper morning in Vienna, we skipped Chez Bernard and walked around to Motto Brot instead. It sits tucked beneath the hotel, small and unpretentious, with an outdoor seating area that comes into its own in warmer weather.

Inside: organically made breads, pastries, and hot drinks, and a smell that does most of the convincing before you’ve even looked at the menu. I had an almond croissant and a vanilla oat milk latte. My sister, a pain au chocolat and a latte. Freshly made that morning, the almond croissant was a different experience entirely from anything I’ve had under the same name in the UK.

At €6.50 for the almond croissant and €4 for the pain au chocolat, with coffee from €5.50, it won’t break the bank. If you want something lighter before heading out to explore, or simply want to start the day at a slower pace, Motto Brot is exactly the right answer.

Vienna Changed the Way I Ate

For only a few days, we ate very well. We repeated a few places, Chez Bernard in particular, but they were worth repeating. Everything we tried, we liked. That doesn’t always happen.

Vienna is a city that rewards the curious eater. There is a cafe on almost every street, and in shoulder season, that is where most of the city seems to be. It’s an easy place to eat well without trying too hard, which is exactly what we did.

Since coming home, TikTok has helpfully decided to show me every restaurant we missed, none of which appeared on my feed while we were actually there. How convenient. It just means we have more reason to go back.

One thing I noticed across the trip was how differently I ate. Two proper meals a day, both of them unhurried, and I was completely satisfied. No snacking, no grazing, none of the low-level hunger that follows me around at home despite three meals and a well-stocked kitchen.

I don’t think it was discipline. I think it was the environment. I was walking more than usual, sleeping at reasonable hours, barely looking at a screen, and genuinely curious about everything around me.

My body seemed to respond to all of that by recalibrating quietly and without any effort on my part. Wholesome breakfasts that actually gave me energy. Dinners that felt like events rather than obligations. I’d packed sweet treats and barely touched them, choosing kaiserschmarrn on a pavement in the city centre instead, which felt categorically better in every way.

There’s something about being present with your food, and genuinely active between meals, that changes your relationship with eating entirely. It’s closer to how people in warmer, slower cultures have always eaten. I came home thinking about that more than I expected to. Not with any grand resolution, just with a quiet awareness that the conditions we create around eating matter as much as what’s on the plate.

Vienna fed us extremely well. But I think it also just reminded us how to eat.

Aside from one extortionately priced coffee, which I regret nothing about, the food in Vienna is very reasonably priced and broadly comparable to London. If you find London prices reasonable, that is. I’m used to it at this point.

I don’t do ratings out of five. I never find them particularly useful, and I’m not sure they’d add much here. Hopefully the descriptions do the work instead. If you try any of these, let us know in the comments how you found them.

Writer & Photographer

Deborah Kombe is a London-based writer and photographer crafting immersive stories and visual narratives that explore culture, travel and lifestyle.

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