5 of the Best Bakeries in Vienna

By Tas TóbiásLast updated: May. 8, 2024

Compared with other big cities, the average quality of bread and breakfast pastries in Vienna is very solid but I highlighted below a handful of bakeries that are especially dedicated to excellence. Local specialties include the wonderful salty sticks (Stangerln), concoctions layered with walnuts or poppy-seeds, filled donuts (Krapfen), and Vienna’s most well-known export, the Kaiser roll.

#1 Ströck Feierabend (Burggasse)

Ströck is a city-wide chain of bakeries, most of them the reliable workhorse type, but I’m here to highlight their Burggasse shop whose croissants have no equal in Vienna. Freshly made throughout the day, tender and flaky, but also rich and elastic and enclosed in a shiny glaze. Other treats, too, exist – wonderful rolls, Stangerln (bread sticks), breakfast pastries – and a spacious and comfortable dining area where egg-based breakfasts are served. All this inside Vienna’s most fashionable neighborhood in District 7.

#2 Felzl (Lerchenfelder Straße)

Felzl is a popular new-wave bakery chain in Vienna with famously delicious almond croissants. Yes: tender and crispy and filled with a rich paste. The morning pastries and sandwiches are also generously portioned and tasty. My go-to is their Lerchenfelder Straße location, with a spacious interior, soaring ceilings, plenty of seating, and giant windows that overlook this lively street. And overlook, too, the Altlerchenfelder Parish Church, the first Romantic-style building in Vienna and with a wonderful fresco cycle inside.

#3 Öfferl (Wollzeile)

Together with Joseph’s Brot, Öfferl is the most fashionable – and expensive – of Vienna’s new-wave bakeries. With a couple of locations in the city center, it’s also the most easily accessible to visitors. Of their sweet breakfast pastries, I especially like the generously filled vanilla donut (Krapfen), the yeast rolls with plum jam (Powidl-Buchteln), and the cottage-cheese pastry (Topfengolatsche). Also excellent are the bread and roll selections, especially the Salzstangerln – typical Viennese bread sticks coated in coarse salt grains and caraway seeds. Perfect for snacking.

#4 Joseph Brot (Albertinaplatz)

Opened in 2009, Joseph’s Brot was among the avant-garde in Vienna’s new-wave bakery revolution. The company’s success has been so complete that today it operates a nationwide chain, two of which are in Vienna’s city center. Both polished, sleek, and sharp-looking. Let me draw your attention to the kaiser rolls, the almond and chocolate croissants, and the potato sticks (Stangerl).

It's another question whether they’re superior to those served by others on this list – I’m not convinced – and they’re surely pricier. Note that this location, across the Albertina Museum, has a seating area too (try to get there early, before it gets mobbed on the weekends).

#5 Anker (Opera)

Founded in 1891, Anker is Vienna’s largest bakery chain. Chances are that you’ve already passed one of its 92 locations, each with a prominent red and white sign. Given Anker’s reach, its products and prices target the taste and the wallet of the median consumer, that is to say: the pastries are solid and affordable. Of special note are the ground-walnut-filled Nussbeugerls and the delicious apple strudels. This location, in a side street off the Vienna Opera, is central and light-filled and usually not too busy. And open on Sundays.