Vienna Food Tour: Essential Austrian Cuisine

Vienna’s taste for indulgence permeates the city, reaching from the palaces and surrounding vineyards into the very shops and streets of the city. On this Vienna food tour, we'll join a local food expert to explore traditional Austrian foods and new trends in this exciting gastronomic destination. We'll dive into specialty food shops, enjoy some tastings, and learn how Austrian food today is evolving with an eye to tradition.

This walk will usually start by sampling some traditional Viennese goulash and dumplings, a dish that highlights the history of Vienna as the center of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We may discuss the regional variations between goulashes from different countries and how the unique Austrian version evolved.

Our next visits vary from tour to tour depending on our appetites. Stops may include a local cheese specialty shop to sample a variety of cheeses, from silky and mild to full and complex; savory snacks or sausages at a local cafe; a famous local confectionery shop that once had a branch on Fifth Avenue; an Austrian wine cellar; or a street food stand, to relish hearty favorites like Leberkäse—a type of sausage popular throughout Europe’s German-speaking nations. While walking the sidewalks of Vienna, we'll develop a sense of gastronomy's role in the everyday lives of Austrians and the important relationship between a city and its gastronomic traditions.

We'll finish our sensory tour with a sweet treat in a local pastry shop or cafe, getting a glimpse of the cafe culture for which Vienna is known. It is not uncommon for patrons to buy a Wiener Melange - coffee with milk foam - and then simply spend the whole day in the coffeehouse. As gathering places for Vienna's intelligentsia, cafes have historically served as a mise en scene for political, artistic, and social movements. As our walk draws to a close, we'll consider the importance of these intellectual gathering places and how they provide a tableau of Viennese Gemütlichkeit - that famed coziness.

At the end of this walk, we’ll have a greater understanding of how the contemporary food scene in the city converges with tradition and how culinary craftsmanship has shaped the way of life—and we will have indulged in true Viennese fashion.

Learn more about this experience in our Context Stories. 

Can I participate in food tours if I have food allergies or other dietary restrictions?
This tour may be possible to adapt to vegetarian diets; however, Viennese cuisine is very meat-heavy, so the tastings would be more limited. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be possible to adapt for vegan diets. Please note when you are booking the tour if you have any dietary restrictions. 

Yes, it is. There is mild walking, with the possibility of some type of seating in most of the venues. There are no staircases. There may be wheelchair-accessible washrooms available.