Vienna Restaurant Tips by nicolaitan

Nordsee: Fresh Seafood Cafeteria with Crime Appetizer

Nordsee is an international purveyor of seafood over 100 years old with 6000 employees and over 400 sites offering a cafeteria style dining experience and a modern setting for quick easy dining. Selections range from salads to elaborate lobster plates, all pre-prepared at the site we visited. Ambience and service are not issues here - there are none.

Looking for a quick dinner, we opted for an assortment of seafood salads - fresh fish, crisp greens, tasty, just what we wanted and we were not disappointed. Nordsee delivers - very good for what it is. Our enthusiasm is, of course, tempered by the theft of P's pocketbook by pseudo-diners at the next table.

Address: Kartnerstrasse 25, 1010 Wien

Comparison: about average

Price: US$11-20

Rating: 4

Theme: Seafood

Bar Splendio Italio: Lunch at the Freyung Square

An ultramodern cafe at one end of the Freyung Square features salads, sandwiches, coffee and light drinks, and very loud music in a contemporary setting. Some tables inside were on platforms. A large space in front allows for outdoor dining in clement weather. Bathroom facilties were out the back of the restaurant in a shopping arcade, shared with another restaurant on the other side of the building, totally inaccessible to the physically challenged, but at least clean.

Shared salads were artistically presented but meager and blandly uninspiring. Service was strikingly disinterested.

With so many excellent choices within several hundred yards, including the Cafe Central, Splendio was a mistake.

Address: On the corner of Freyung next to Schottenkirche

Comparison: more expensive than average

Price: US$11-20

Rating: 2

Theme: Italian

Zimolo: Quality Italian in an Austrian Setting

Characterizing itself as an osteria, Zimolo offers a purely Italian menu in a mixed decor, professional business-like service, and very good food with an emphasis on seafood. In good weather, tables are placed outside along the sidewalk. Inside, brightly colored tablecloths are set against a wood panelled and pale pastel wall treatment, and a very italianate checked floor. A large wine cabinet oriented longitudinally backs the bar. Beethoven lived on the same little Blutgasse district street back when. Today the clientele appears equally local in origin.

The emphasis is on seafood here, although the limited menu selection includes pasta and meat as well. Zimolo is a little more expensive than most of our choices, entrees running up to Eu20-22. Monkfish and shrimp with linguine were featured on our visit - the shrimp dish was probably our best in Vienna, done with garlic and oil, brandy, cherry tomatoes, and parsley. A mixed vegetable appetizer preceding our meal was also quite good, fresh ingredients and a light dressing. Dessert was out of the question, coffee was again a revelation. Also highly recommended.

Address: Ballgasse 5, 1010 Wien

Comparison: more expensive than average

Phone: 01 512 99 82

Price: US$21-30

Rating: 5

Theme: Italian

Cafe Frauenhuber: The Oldest Viennese Coffeehouse

Stated to be the oldest coffeehouse in Vienna, Cafe Frauenhuber and the building it occupies have a long illustrious history. The first record of the site indicates a bathouse dating to 1314. Over the centuries it would add a succession of barber-surgeon owners engaged in shaving, hair-cutting, treatment of skin diseases and ulcers, blood-letting, and cupping. Originally owned by a monastery, it was bought in 1673 by surgeon Christoph Ruepp, whose family would own the building for about a century The bathouse was closed and the building reconstructed to its current 4 story baroque appearance in the 1720's.
In 1788 Franz Jahn, a chef for Empress Maria Theresien, acquired the building and opened one of Vienna's most popular coffeehouses, complete with muscial performances by the likes of Beethoven and Mozart. After passing through several owners and another complete renovation, Cafe Frauenhuber opened in 1891, family-owned ever since.

This restaurant looks like what a coffee house should look like - heavy chandeliers, marble tables, tuxedoed service staff. Dark red fabrics and wood dominate the decor. Many of the tables are interlocked in groups facing outward lending privacy while most of the remainder are along the walls, not just rows of tables. Lighting is just subdued enough to appreciate the old bar, the bookcases, and the small landscapes on the walls. And service was among the friendliest and most welcoming we encountered in Vienna.

Given the setting, traditional Austrian food was the choice. Wiener Schnitzel and Tafelspitz, the favorite of Emperor Franz Josef, with roasted potatoes, spinach, and for the beef the obligatory horseradish sauce - this was an excellent and satisfying meal. Other choices included steak and pork dishes as well as vegetarian offerings. Trout and pike comprised the fish portion of the menu. Prices for entrees were all 12-18Eu. For dessert, obscenely delicious crepes ( image 3 ) with hot chocolate sauce and whipped cream ( desserts Eu 3-8 ). Good coffee. One of our best meals in Austria, Cafe Frauenhuber certainly has our recommendation.

Address: Himmelpfortgasse 6, 1010 Wien

Comparison: about average

Directions: From Stephansdom, 3 blocks toward the Opera on Kartnerstrasse, then a left of Himmelpfortgasse. On the right, half way down.

Phone: 01/512 53 53

Price: US$21-30

Rating: 5

Theme: German/Austrian

Website: http://www.cafefrauenhuber.at

MUMOK Cafe: Lunch at the Museums

The opulent cafe at the Kunsthistorische Museum has a beautiful setting one flight up from the entrance, overlooked by the magnificent dome. But it was noisy, crowded, brutally expensive, and crossed by major walkways for non-dining museum goers. The cafe at the entrance to the Museum Quarter was worse - absolute chaos, tables and chairs randomly crowded together, bustling harried-looking service staff, and without a posted menu.

We selected the cafe at the MUMOK on the top floor - ultramodern decor with mirrors, light woods, a modern fully stocked bar, and an available outdoor terrace on the roof. The cafe was quiet and spacious with comfortable leather chairs and larger tables, offered good service, and most important - we did not feel rushed to finish and leave. The menu is surprisingly extensive for this type of facility - we shared an excellent salad and an order of delicious spicy sausages ( looked like frankfurters, tasted like real food ) with potatoes across four people in unhurried peace. The menu is strong on salads and soups, offers desserts, all relatively reasonably priced for a captive audience which appeared to include a larger percentage of business-clad diners rather than tourists.

Address: Museum Quarter

Comparison: about average

Directions: At the top of the MUMOK, reached by elevator and a long corridor.

Price: US$11-20

Rating: 4

Theme: German/Austrian

Weibel's Wirtshaus: Classic Austrian with a Mediterranean Touch

Weibel's Wirtshaus offers the typical ambience of a neighborhood pub with lots of wood, pale walls, light sconces, and a typical Austrian menu with all the usual suspects available. Well known, it appears in overseas travel books. There are 40 inside seats and warm enough weather a raised outdoor wooden patio with perhaps room for another 40 and where we ate ( the inside rooms were pretty deserted ).

Setting Weibel's a step apart are the specials offered, with a heavy emphasis on Mediterranean-style fish and shellfish offerings. For starters, we began with adequate salads and one of the soup offerings - a meat-based broth with little squares of pasta - very good. The fish entrees from the specials included a bland and disappointing bass type fish in a heavy sauce and the surprise entree - artistically arranged shrimp and avocado - a better choice.
The second unique feature of Weibel's is the wine list. The owner, Hans Weibel, is awine expert, runs a popular Viennese wine bar, and offers for those who are in the know a long detailed wine list heavily emphasizing Austrian wine, a few available by the glass for Eu 4.5. Entrees all run Eu 15-20 except a few cheaper pastas. The dessert menu ( too much for us to try ) again is traditional and priced at Eu 6-8. Service was competent and professional, credit cards accepted, reservations probably necessary on weekends.

Address: Kumpfgasse 2, Wien 1010

Comparison: more expensive than average

Directions: hidden away in the Blutgasse district, metro stephansplatz. walk one block on Kartnerstrasse towards the opera, left on Singerstrasse, several blocks and left on Kumpfgasse all the way to the end of a long curving block.

Phone: 01/512 39 86

Price: US$21-30

Rating: 4

Theme: German/Austrian

Website: http://www.weibel.at - in german only