What’s on the menu today? Seitan schnitzel, veggie burgers and vegan apricot pancakes! Vegetarian restaurants are becoming increasingly popular and varied, and there is now something for everybody in Vienna, from small organic stores serving lunch to fashionable places for the in crowd.

Vegetarian and vegan restaurants really seem to be springing up all over the place in Vienna, with snack bars, cafes and restaurants devoted to meat-free dishes now so numerous that they fill a separate restaurant guide. This trend for vegetarian dining can also be observed in Austria’s neighbours, so wieninternational.at won’t just be concentrating on where the Viennese can eat, but will also be looking further afield and tracking down veggie joints in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe.

A vegan meat market

Interestingly enough, one of the best places for vegetarian food in Vienna is Fleischmarkt, a street whose name translates as ‘meat market’. Persian specialities are served in Kamelia Hadame’s ‘Cafe Treff’, while the lunchtime menu complete with homemade desserts at ‘Makro 1’ is a particular favourite of the hard-to-please reviewers of the new Vegetarischer Lokalführer Wien (Vienna Vegetarian Restaurant Guide). If you want to cook the dishes at home, you can buy the ingredients from the attached organic store.

Feel like you’re on holiday in your lunch break

Vienna’s first district is generally a great place to go for vegetarians. The health food shop and lunchtime restaurant ‘Köstlich’ will make you think you’re in Southern Europe, with vegetarian pasticcio and Mediterranean gnocchi casserole among the dishes on the menu. The food is just as delicious in the neighbouring ‘Saladbox’, which is probably down to Miroslava Stojanovic, who is in charge of cooking in both kitchens of this small family concern. ‘Natürlich Wrenkh’, ‘Bio Werkstatt’ and ‘Bio Bar von Antun’ are also always worth a visit.

Veggie food for connoisseurs

‘Tian’ on Seilerstätte can be recommended for those with sophisticated tastes, and it also boasts a ‘takeaway.market’ offering a selection of homemade sweets and desserts for taking with you. You can buy light, healthy fare to take away in ‘Fein Essen’ next to the Paulanerkirche church in the 4th district, where two former psychologists specialise in gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan food. Meanwhile, ‘Yamm’, located opposite the main university building, is the perfect place for those who care about their diet, with a large buffet offering a seemingly endless selection, and reasonable prices, even for students.

Middle Eastern and Asian food

Like the city centre, the 6th and 7th districts are also a good area for non-carnivores. Take ‘Feldberg’ or ‘Landia’, for example, which both do a great line in fresh dishes and whole foods. If you turn off Mariahilferstraße into the Raimundhof courtyard, you’ll find great Middle Eastern and Asian vegetarian dishes in ‘nice rice’, while you can get fried ‘Visch’ (meat-free alternative to fish) and vegetarian ‘chicken legs’ not far away at ‘Xu’s Cooking’ in Kaiserstraße.

Veggie fare in the local Beisl

There’s no reason why you can’t combine tradition with vegetarian cuisine.  ‘Rupp’s’ is your archetypal Viennese Beisl (a traditional bar), but seitan schnitzel (made of wheat gluten), millet seed burgers and vegan pancakes are served when you take a break from darts and table football. Simple vegetarian fare can also be enjoyed in ‘Hollerei’, while ‘Cafe Kafka’, which is popular with students, offers interior layout and service just like in the best Viennese coffee houses, though its Middle Eastern and vegetarian menu departs from the norm. After sampling houmous with olives and bread, however, you can still treat yourself to a piece of Sachertorte for dessert.

Cakes for those with allergies

In the organic restaurant and grocery store ‘Cuchina’, lunch is cooked according to the five elements theory at the long table in the middle and if you get there early, you can also get a good breakfast. The name says it all at ‘Fett+Zucker’ (fat and sugar), but this great little cafe not far from the Karmelitermarkt could just as easily be called ‘Vegan+gluten-free’, since it serves vegan apple cake and banana bread, as well as other desserts free of gluten and lactose. We’ll forgive its legendary cheesecake for being ‘only’ vegetarian.






For Veggie restaurants from Bratislava to Zagreb read click here!