Quick Review... Restaurants of Vienna, Austria

We've been talking about most memorable restaurants from our trip to Europe. Today, we talk about Vienna, Austria.

3 Hacken Magazin: A wine bar, with a focus on traditional food and local wine, our ideal place for dinner. The dinner was well-executed, the wine list was interesting, and our waiter was both helpful and fluent in English to help us with the menu. We enjoyed our meal, and, a first: we even tried some afterdinner drinks--a local Elderberry Schnapps and a Chardonnay "Grappa" which was much sweeter than the Italian style. Not really to Tina's liking, either of them, but fun to try.

Reinthaler: This was an interesting find. Hidden in the cellar, on a side street, we stumbled across it and felt compelled to try it out. The old cellar-basement was a maze, and we had some difficulty figuring out what was going on. We could order food at our table, or at the counter in the other room, but we had to order our wine from the waiter. Or at least that's the gist of what Tina understood, from the terse blast of German our waiter rifled off in the energetic bar. Getting our food and wine was worth the effort: simple, honest food and simple, local wine. The house wine, at 1,60 Euro (or, about $2.00) a glass was some of the most drinkable housewine we've ever had.

Dinner at Rheintaler, pork in the foreground, schnitzel in the background.

Hollmann Salon: The internet makes finding good restaurants easy, even halfway around the world. Nestled in a courtyard well outside the main tourist areas, we never would have found this place on our own. But we are glad we did. This was a real treat to end our trip with dinner here our last night in Europe. The space was modern and cozy, the staff was helpful with impeccable English, and the food was interesting and one of the best meals we've had anywhere. The food was a bit meat-centric, and the portions were a little large for a four course dinner, but it was good to see tail-to-snout cooking so embraced. We had the chance to try some really interesting ingredients over the course of our dinner: pig's ear, veal tongue, snail, and snail eggs. And the wine list was heavily slanted towards Austrian wines, which was a nice touch. We learned that their menu changes every month, and when it does, they host a party to say goodbye to the old menu, and hello to the new. We say, Hello Hollmann!