Where to Drink With The Locals: 24 of The Best Bars in Vienna

Cafe Anno is a popular drinking joint for Viennese alternatives. Despite its location between bougie District 7 and upscale District 8, this is a dive bar of the best kind: low lights, wooden floors, maroon walls covered in posters, lots of intellectual types. It’s easy to love this place. Draft beers are notably delicious and affordable. Fans of foosball and darts can appropriate the designated room in the back. The music selections lean 1980s pop.

District 7, Neubau, is the bougie part of Vienna, but you can occasionally stumble into places that don’t try so hard to be cool. One of my favorite bars around here is Kreisky, named after Austria's seminal social democratic Chancellor, Bruno Kreisky. It’s the type of grungy, graffitied-over drinking joint that’s cozy, lively, and inviting (except the bathroom). No matter whether you order a coke-and-wine combo (“cola rot” – tastes better than it sounds) or a glass of prosecco, the bartenders won’t turn up their noses at you. Daily specials include "free shots for true tears."

One of the hidden jewels of Vienna's District 6 (Mariahilf), Cafe Monic is an updated dive bar, one that makes no attempt to bring attention to itself. While the outside of the building is covered in graffiti, the inside is dim with plenty of nooks and crannies. It’s the kind of bar where neither a Campari soda, nor the house lager feels out of place. The crowd consists of alternative-leaning locals in their twenties and thirties who come here for date nights and weekday drinks. Open until 4 a.m. every day.

Named after Emanuel Schikadener, who wrote the libretto for Mozart's The Magic Flute, this is a positively grungy bar along the fashionable Margaretenstraße in Vienna’s District 4. It’s all about the crowd here, which is young and cool and artistic and alternative. Friday and Saturday nights are especially fun. Also: Cheap booze and toasted sandwiches served with a generous side of ketchup. Enough said. (The premises is attached to the neighboring art cinema, Schikadener Kino. )

An alternative-leaning bar right in Vienna’s historic city center otherwise known for its Baroque palaces and five-star hotels? Wunder-Bar – a play on the German word for “wonderful” – hides on a small, obscure medieval street. The inside is dark and quirky, showing the strange postmodern touches of architect Hermann Czech: fading leather banquettes, decorative ribbed vaulting, inlaid marbles, space-swelling mirrors (Mr. Czech left a similar mark on the nearby Kleines Café).

Habakuk is where hip and alternative Viennese Millennials from District 6 go to drink. At its core, Habakuk is an unfussy dive bar, just more cozy and intimate. The main room is dark and lined with small tables and a cushy banquette. Perfect for a date night. As it should, the music gets increasingly better and louder as the night progresses.

Young Viennese hipsters and middle-aged regulars stand elbow-to-elbow at this dim, austere, and not particularly charming drinking den that wouldn’t be wrong to characterize as a dive bar. But the loyal customers and the lively ambiance give soul to Jazzcafe and make it worth your attention. Drinks are low-priced, and the eclectic music selections include jazz, 1980s French pop, and everything in between. The neighborhood, Vienna’s District 7, is home to many bars, so you could drop in to nearby Kreisky, too.

If you think Vienna is too wealthy and civilized for grungy, run-down, alternative dive bars, please make your way to Schmauswaberl, located near the Naschmarkt. It’s the type of place where walls are graffitied over and cleanliness isn’t a priority, but where longtime regulars and young art students fill the space with energy. Open until 2 a.m. daily in a city that goes to sleep early.