World Travel Guide Search for a City   Destination Guides > Europe & Russia > Europe > Austria Austria •  Austria •  Where To Go •  When To Go •  Red Tape And Visas •  Health •  Costs, Money And Banks •  Getting Around •  Eating And Drinking •  Communications •  Best Of •  Festivals •  Sports And Outdoor Activities •  Explore Austria AUSTRIA - EATING AND DRINKING Austria    view all cities Top Travel Destinations •  Salzburg •  Vienna Austrian cuisine revolves around a solid pork- and veal-based repertoire, of which Wiener Schnitzel is the most famous example. Main meals tend to be meat-heavy affairs, however, and don't reflect the variety offered by Austria's main contribution to global gastronomic culture - the consumption of endless varieties of coffee, cakes and sweets. Partaking of the calorific delights in the cake-filled cafés and coffeehouses is an essential part of the Austrian experience - whatever consequences this might have for your waistline. The kinds of venues where you will do your eating and drinking tend to overlap, making precise definitions difficult. Many cafés and coffeehouses offer breakfast and lunchtime menus alongside the expected range of drinks and sweets, while bars and other night-time drinking venues often have a wide choice of hot evening food. Similarly, many of the less grand restaurants are good places in which to simply sit and enjoy a beer. Breakfasts and snacks Breakfast ( Frühstuck ) in Austria usually comprises a pot of tea or coffee, together with a couple of rolls with butter and jam - this is what you'll get if you're staying in a youth hostel, private room, pension or inexpensive hotel. One step up, a "full continental breakfast" means you should get a bit of choice, perhaps cold meats and cheeses and, if you're really lucky, a hot egg-based snack. Most hotels at mid-range and above offer a buffet breakfast, which means you can gorge yourself on as much cereal, muesli, eggs, bread, rolls, cheese and meats as you can eat. Most cafés will have a set breakfast menu (again, usually a pot of coffee and a couple of bread rolls and/or pastries) for around öS50-80/?3.63-5.81, and you can of course order extra bits and pieces separately. If you're self-catering, then fresh round bread rolls ( Semmeln ) or finger rolls ( Stangerl ) bought from a supermarket or bakery ( Bäckerei ) are delicious, as are Kipferl , croissant-style pastries, or the slightly sweeter Kolatschen . Bread ( Brot ) is taken very seriously in Austria, and there is usually a wide variety of lovely crusty loaves on display in most bakeries. The standard loaf is Hausbrot , a mixture of wheat ( Weizen ) and rye ( Roggen ), often with caraway ( Kümmel ) or sunflower seeds ( Sonnenblumen ). Austrian snacks centre on the ubiquitous Würstelstand , or sausage stand, which sells hot sausage ( Wurst ) as well as a few other things - usually French fries, soft drinks, canned beer and occasionally burgers. Numerous varieties of Wurst are available: Frankfurter, Bratwurst (fried sausage) or Burenwurst (boiled sausage) are the most common, but you could also try a Debreziner , a spicy Hungarian sausage, a Currywurst , which speaks for itself, a Käsekrainer , a sausage filled with blobs of molten cheese, or a Bosna , a thin and spicy Balkan sausage. To accompany your sausage, you usually get a roll ( Semmel ) and some mustard ( Senf ), which can be either scharf (hot) or süss (sweet). Cheap eats For a cheap sit-down meal, budget travellers shouldn't overlook the cheap two-course set menus ( Mittagsmenü ) offered by many cafés at lunchtime, usually priced at under öS100/?7.27. Otherwise, you could try one of the self-service restaurants ( Selbstbedienung ) chains like Wienerwald (an upmarket fried chicken joint) and Nordsee (serving fish- and seafood-based snacks), which you'll find in most major towns, and which offer a slightly more central European alternative to the international burger chains. Prima is the biggest chain of self-service restaurants, with branches throughout Austria, and big town-centre department stores often have a self-service restaurant of their own. They're a good place to get a cheap meal, although surroundings are pretty uninspiring, and they're usually only open in the daytime, closing at around 6pm. Train station buffets usually offer reasonably inexpensive meals of the schnitzel and chips variety, although they're not always the kind of place that you'd want to sit down in for long. Billa is the largest national chain of supermarket , with outlets in most towns. However, Austria has yet to become a fully paid-up member of the supermarket society, and most stores are relatively modest in size, even in large towns. Nevertheless, since individually owned specialist food shops can be pretty thin on the ground, you'll probably find yourself relying on supermarkets if you're self-catering, or gathering picnic supplies . If you can, though, it's worth seeking out the weekly local market, often known as a Bauernmarkt (farmers' market), the best source of fresh local produce, and usually a good place for street snacks. Anker, the national bakery chain, is ubiquitous, but its bread and pastries are reliably good. Main meals The main meals of the day can often be taken in a Kaffeehaus or cafe, although a larger choice of dishes will be offered by a restaurant or a Gasthof - the latter traditionally describing an inn, though nowadays use of the word merely implies that the establishment has a homely, traditional feel. A Stübe , or Stüberl ("small room" or "parlour"), also denotes an eating venue with a traditional or cosy atmosphere. Other words for restaurant to look out for are Gasthaus and Gastwirtschaft . In mountain areas you can eat in an atmospheric, pine-clad Hütte , or Almhütte (literally "meadow-hut"), which will offer a modest range of food and drink to skiers in winter and walkers in summer. For many Austrians, lunch ( Mittagessen ) rather than dinner ( Nachtmahl ) is the day's principal repast, although this doesn't usually affect the choice of food that you'll be offered in the evening. As a general rule, restaurants and Gasthöfe are open for lunch between noon and 2pm, and for dinner between 6pm and 9.30pm, although in cities and tourist resorts many establishments remain open until 11pm or midnight. Eating out need not be expensive. Standards are generally high wherever you choose to eat, and price differences from one establishment to the next are usually reflected in the decor, the choice of items on the menu, and the way in which the food is presented, rather than in the quality of ingredients. A hearty soup will set you back something in the region of öS30-50/?2.18-3.63, wherever you choose to eat. A main course of the schnitzel variety (with accompanying veg or salad) will cost öS90-130/?6.54-9.45 in the more unassuming restaurants, and will rarely rise above a ceiling of öS200/?14.54 in plush establishments. The cheapest main courses on offer are often the combinations of cheese and pasta-style noodles (such as Kasspätzln or Käsnudl ; see "What to eat" section) so characteristic of Austrian rural cuisine. They're usually priced somewhere in the öS80-100/?5.81-7.27 bracket, and even the most upmarket restaurants will have at least one basic, inexpensive dish of this kind on the menu. Most places will have a full menu ( Speise- karte ) of individually priced dishes, as well as a two- or three-course set menu (often chalked up on a board outside), which is often much better value. A Mittagsmenü is a lunchtime set menu, and a Tagesmenü is a set menu that's available all day. Note that you should make a mental note of any bread or rolls ( Gepäck ) you consume with your meal, as the waiter will ask you how many you've had before totting up the bill at the end. Cafes For urban Austrians, daytime drinking traditionally centres around the cafe or the Kaffeehaus . There's no real difference between the two: the name " Kaffeehaus " suggests some historical pedigree - a relaxing, urban cafe, furnished with a stock of the day's newspapers, in the vein of the grand, atmospheric Viennese cafes - but cafes, too, offer essentially the same range of food and drink. Both serve alcoholic and soft drinks, cakes and a wide range of different coffees (see "Coffee and cakes"). Places where cakes and pastries are baked on the premises often call themselves a Cafe-Konditorei , or Kaffee-Konditorei. Many places also serve substantial lunches and main evening meals, although the choice is usually more limited than in restaurants. Cafés and coffeehouses often open as early as 7am and continue until early evening; those in big cities remain open until 11pm or later. Bars and heurigen Although some cafés stay open quite late in the evening, most night-time drinking centres on a growing number of bars and late-night cafés , where there might be a live DJ though not necessarily any dancing. Most stay open until 1-2am; in cities and alpine resorts opening hours may extend further, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. An alternative place to do your drinking is in one of Austria's many Heurigen , the wine taverns found predominantly in the former villages of Vienna's outer suburbs, on the slopes of the Wienerwald, and in the many wine regions of Lower Austria, Burgenland and Styria. The word heurig means "this year's", as it was here that the vintner would encourage tastings in order to try and sell a few bottles of his (exclusively white) wine. In the good old days, people used to bring their own picnics to consume and sat on wooden benches in the vintner's garden whilst sampling the wine, but nowadays most Heurigen provide a self-service (usually, but not exclusively, cold) buffet of traditional peasant fare. Traditionally, a visit to a Heuriger is accompanied by Schrammel musik , sentimental fiddle, guitar and accordion music, though today such music only features at the more touristy ventures in Vienna. Real Heurigen are only permitted to open for 300 days in any one year, and may only sell wine and food produced on the premises. If the Heuriger is open, the custom is to display a Buschen , or bunch of evergreen boughs, over the entrance, with a sign telling you it's ausg'stekt ("hung out"). Those that still abide by the strict Heurigen laws generally have a sign saying Buschenschank , though it has to be said that some have now attained restaurant licences in order to open all year round. A display board at the centre of the smaller villages lists those Heurigen that are currently open; otherwise the local tourist office will have the details.