Eat Vienna

Traditional coffeehouse culture still thrives in Austria’s capital but modern, worldly flavours are starting to steal the spotlight. Words: Audrey Gillan

- Audrey Gillan

I can hear a thwacking, a sonorous thudding rhythm that puzzles me as I sit at my table in a restaurant in Vienna. It takes a few moments to tune into it, then I get to my feet and follow the beat. It transpired that the sound is a big plastic mallet hitting fillets of veal laid out on a marble counter in what turns out to be the echo of the first step in the making of Wiener schnitzel. This may be a city where some of the world’s best operas and classical pieces were composed and performed, but one of the sweetest sounds to be heard in the Austrian capital is the tenderising of cutlets. This symphony ends in sizzling: the meat is drenched in flour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs before it’s fried (here at Meissl & Schadn, you can choose to have your veal bubbled in butter, lard or oil).

Vienna is the seat of the former Habsburg empire, once the home of Franz Joseph and the assassinated Ferdinand, of Mozart and Wagner, of Schiele and Klimt, of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung; the place where dictators and despots such as Hitler, Stalin, Trotsky and Tito came to live in their formative years. With such a cluster of artists, intellectuals and fanatics who loved the sound of their own voice, a vibrant cafe culture — kaffeehauskultur — emerged in the last quarter of the 19th century. With this fin-de-siecle scene came the creation of some of the world’s greatest and most famous cakes — Sachertorte, Mozart torte, zwetschkenfleck (plum cake) and more.