Restaurant Reviews

Now that the holiday season is behind us, Vienna has rung in the new year, and the first snowfalls have dusted the city with a wintery nimbus – which provides the perfect backdrop for gazing out the window and pondering life’s eternal questions…

Such as, Does this town really need another pizzeria?

When you venture away from the Ring in search of a new restaurant, you enter a strange mixture between fascination and fear. Stumbling on Mraz & Sohn in Brigittenau in the 20th District one Wednesday evening, we found a bit of both. 

The Marktachterl on the Karmelitermarkt used to be a worn and friendly Gasthaus that was a favourite for breakfast. Next door was a little fish market that too has since shut its doors, meaning an end to fresh fish in the neighborhood. It seems like a lot to regret.

Dim lighting can be enticingly cozy, and a Nepalese restaurant in Vienna’s 6th District has taken this concept to the extreme. The first task after taking a seat in the courtyard of Yak & Yeti is to allow your eyes to adjust. I squinted to find a companion in the summer evening dusk who sat at a table at the back of the Schanigarten. A glass awning protruding from the building, from which the only suggestion of light emanated from wall-mounted candles, roofed the tables.

‘Casual luxury’ may at first sound contradictory. Luxurious fine dining seems doomed to humorless waiters, stiff interiors and uninventive – if experienced – cooks and kitchens. Especially in Vienna, where tradition often takes precedence over originality, one may have become accustomed to the charm of the haughty tuxedo-clad waiters of Kaffeehäuser and consider eccentricity to be found elsewhere.

The great emperor Marcus Aurelius – who died in Vienna in 180 AD – had a reputation for being a connoisseur of the pleasures of the table. Not only did he thoroughly enjoy his food, he was an unashamed enthusiast of all culinary delights, considering fine wine among his top priorities, to which he undoubtedly applied the measured judgments of his Stoic philosophy.

For those of us who associate Chinese food in Vienna with the standard “Europeanized” fare of crispy-fried chicken doused in generic sweet and sour sauce, kraut-stuffed spring rolls and fried rice that looks like Risi-Pisi, Liounge offers an intriguing alternative. Located in the up and coming culinary mile that is Gumpendorferstrasse, this stylish restaurant is sure to win over the hearts and stomachs of foodies looking for a more authentic ethic dining experience.

Walking down the tree-lined Ausstellungsstraße cutting through Vienna’s 2nd District, you might be too repulsed by the gaudiness of the neighboring Wurstelprater amusement park to think of fine dining. Multi-colored lights of the Giant Wheels and haunted houses flash high above the newly built Admiral Casino standing in all its kitschy glory at the beginning of the street – not to mention the giant pig that houses a Bankomat machine near the underground station a bit further down.

Benkei Okasan has a proud smile on her face watching her kids run one of the city’s best sushi restaurants located in Vienna’s 3rd district.

“Good day. Nice to see you,” she greets her guests as she takes off her shoes at the corner of your Tatami room to pour you a cup of green tea.

Overseeing the family restaurant with a kind but watchful eye, Benkei Okasan has helped her kids own and run the leading Sushi restaurant in Vienna for the past decade.