9 Trendy Restaurants In Vienna

For the past decade, Mochi has been the go-to restaurant for Vienna’s well-heeled and well-informed Millennials. Show parents the place across the Danube Canal they keep hearing about? Mochi. Friends visiting from abroad? Mochi. Jazz up that dreadful covid-plagued Saturday evening? Mochi (delivery).

Mochi's short menu is centered on sushi and sashimi but other Japanese classics also appear. The karaage, bits of crunchy and tender chicken thighs, is as good as at a Tokyo food vendor. The yakitori – grilled and skewered meat anointed in a soy and mirin-spiked sauce – is charred and smoky. The wine list runs deep, with “classy” and “wild” options from Austria and abroad. A full meal and a drink comes out to €55 or so per person, less than in some other cities for similar fare; no surprise that Mochi received a Bib Gourmand award from Michelin.

The success prompted the owners to expand the brand and today the group has additional locations in Vienna, with concepts ranging from ramen to Italian-Japanese food. All of them well-oiled operations. Advance reservation is a must.

If hipster weren’t such a loaded word, I’d deploy it in this writeup, but instead I’ll say that Bruder is the type of place where servers wear baseball hats and tattoos, where jars of fermenting vegetables line the walls, and where natural wines come from countries such as Czechia. Crucially, though, Bruder is a serious establishment and there's no trace of the blithe arrogance that can plague comparably minded restaurants in Vienna.

In line with the New Nordic-school, the plates are packed with seasonal produce and homemade preserves, as was the case with my trout salad enlivened with fermented chickpeas and peanuts. The pure-tasting bratwurst with sauerkraut arrived, playfully, on a ceramic plate resembling a paper tray, the standard delivery vessel for sausages at the city's famed Würstelstands. My favorite was the poppy-seed noodles – a classic across former Habsburg lands – and elevated with mint leaves and apple variations: chutney, sorbet, and a sip of brandy. Daring and delicious.

The three-course prix fixe, for €57, will leave you with a full stomach (options also include a two- and a six-course meal). Reservations are a must.

Tian Bistro is the casual sister restaurant of Tian, the swanky Michelin-starred fine dining temple in downtown. The Bistro is located in the hip part of Vienna, in District 7’s Spittelberg neighborhood. The claim to fame of both places is their vegetarian-only lineup (guests can also opt for vegan).

Without the crutch of meat protein, these seasonal veggies pack more flavors than most of us are used to. The highlight is the €60 six-course tasting menu – the professional servers arrive with striking plates where colors, textures, and flavors play off against one another, as with the creamy, crackly, and charred zucchini variations filled with polenta. Or with the baby corn appearing as a paste, on the cob, and as popcorn. The cheesecake topped with chunks of marinated rhubarb was especially good. There's an excellent wine list heavy on Austrian producers. Reservations are a must.

After your meal, for a change of pace, you could drop in to one of the free-spirited watering holes around the corner from Tian: Kreisky or Bukowski.

Maka is a hip ramen restaurant in the outer part of Vienna’s District 7, a few blocks from the hub of the city's liveliest neighborhood. Solid homemade ramens, four kinds, share the short menu with a tasty okonomiyaki and even tastier “Thai” fried chicken thighs as well as beers, natural wines, and cocktails. A crowd of well-off Viennese Millennials sits around most tables, which are lit by colored light bulbs and overlook a busy open kitchen. Walls are covered in murals made with a thick impasto in what I’d identify as post-neoexpressionist style. The service is speedy and kind – an ideal venue for a first date. The ramens cost €16-22. Reservations: a must.

Rundbar is a natural wine bar and restaurant smack in the heart of Vienna's fashionable District 7. As often with such places, an inflated sense of cool afflicts the servers here – a waiter the other day made a habit of pouring the wines on the go, two at a time, with varying success – but on good days, Rundbar can be more than just a feel-good hangout for uninspired Viennese hipsters.

The place is the project of Weinskandal, a leading natural wine distributor, meaning that the wine selection is deep, especially the Austrian and French labels (pet-nat? yes! orange wines? of course!). The concept is small plates; especially good are the croquetas de jamon, the marinated catfish, and the cold cut selections. Beware, a few of those with a couple of glasses of wine will set you back by €60 or so. Advance reservation is recommended (by phone).

Fans of natural wines, staches, white socks, beanies, and wire-framed glasses will find themselves at home in Cafe Kandl, a buzzing restaurant located in a side street of Vienna's fashionable District 7. Both the food and the wine program capture our global zeitgeist: Kandl's vegetable-forward shared plates and easy-drinking reds would be familiar in places like northern Williamsburg, Brooklyn (its prices, too).

A highlight is the faux gras, a phony liver pâté made from mushrooms and wine gel and perched atop soft and crispy brioche. Updated takes of Austrian classics also appear, such as the savory Germknödel and the roasted liver with creamy potato. Kandl isn’t cheap: a few small bites and two glasses of wine quickly run up to €65 or so per person. Another warning: as is often the case with such unironically cool establishments, the servers can be uncomfortably "edgy."