Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
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Eat a Wiener Schnitzel
Veal beaten to the thickness of a coin and fried in swimming fat so the breading puffs and lifts away from the meat. A real one is veal only; pork must legally be sold as Schnitzel Wiener Art.
It comes with potato salad and a lemon wedge but no sauce, because sauce would soften the crust the whole dish is built around. A good one hangs over the edge of the plate.
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Try Tafelspitz
Beef rump simmered for hours and served in its own broth with apple horseradish, chive sauce and roast potatoes. It was Emperor Franz Joseph's favourite and is still a Viennese Sunday.
It arrives in a copper pot and is eaten in three stages: drink the broth first, then the meat with its sauces, and spread the bone marrow on toasted bread with salt.
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Order Viennese goulash
Not a soup but a thick beef stew with a huge amount of onion cooked down into the sauce. A Beisl serves it with a dumpling or just bread, and in the morning as a hangover breakfast with a sausage on top.
A proper goulash uses as much onion by weight as beef. The morning version with a sausage and a fried egg is a Fiakergulasch, named for the cab drivers who ate it.
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Try Beuschel
Veal lung and heart cut into fine strips in a sour cream sauce with capers and mustard. A Beisl classic that visitors skip for no good reason: the flavour is mild rather than offaly.
It comes with a Serviettenknödel, a sliced bread dumpling that soaks up the sauce. If unsure, ask for a half portion as a starter; many Beisl will do that.
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Eat Backhendl
Chicken in the same airy breading as a schnitzel, fried in pieces and served with lemon and potato salad. It began as Viennese fairground food and is still the main order at a Heuriger.
At a Heuriger you buy it by weight at the counter along with salads and eat it with your hands at a long table in the courtyard.
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Stop at a Würstelstand
The city sausage kiosk, open deep into the night: Käsekrainer studded with cheese pockets, spicy Burenwurst, dark mustard and half a bread roll. Everyone eats here standing, from students to the opera crowd.
You will be asked süß or scharf, sweet or hot mustard. A Käsekrainer is nicknamed an Eitrige, and no vendor will blink if you order it that way.
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Try Liptauer spread
A curd cheese spread with paprika, capers, onion and caraway, pink from the pepper. The standard beer and wine snack, spread on dark bread.
At a Heuriger you take it from the counter alongside smoked pork fat and pickles. Every place sets its own heat level, and asking for a taste first is normal.
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Try Erdäpfelsalat
A warm potato salad dressed with stock and vinegar rather than mayonnaise, often finished with Styrian pumpkin seed oil. It comes with schnitzel not as a side but as half the dish.
The pumpkin seed oil is almost black and smells of toasted seeds; if it is offered, say yes. The salad should be slightly wet rather than dry.
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Eat Kaiserschmarrn Desserts and pastries
A thick pancake torn into shreds with a spatula, caramelised with sugar and raisins and buried in icing sugar. It comes with Zwetschkenröster plum compote and works as a full lunch.
In mountain huts and along the Danube it is a main course, not a dessert. The portion is huge and one between two is the usual move.
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Try Sachertorte Desserts and pastries
A dense chocolate sponge with a thin layer of apricot jam under a mirror glaze. It is deliberately dry, which is why unsweetened whipped cream always comes beside it.
Two houses have argued over the original for more than a century and their recipes differ: one puts the jam in the middle, the other only under the glaze. The cream is part of the dish, not a garnish.
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Try Apfelstrudel Desserts and pastries
Pastry stretched until you can read newsprint through it, filled with apples, raisins and buttered breadcrumbs. Served warm with vanilla sauce, and in some coffee houses stretched in front of guests.
Its cousin is the Topfenstrudel, filled with curd cheese, less sweet and often better. Both go with a Melange rather than tea.
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Drink a Melange in a coffee house Non-alcoholic drinks
Coffee with hot milk and foam in a small cup, served on a metal tray with a glass of water and a spoon laid across it. The spoon on the glass signals that the water is fresh.
In a Viennese coffee house you order a specific drink rather than coffee: a Kleiner Brauner, a Verlängerter, an Einspänner. The word latte means nothing here.
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Try an Einspänner Non-alcoholic drinks
A double espresso in a glass under a cap of cold whipped cream that you do not stir: you drink through it. Named after one-horse cab drivers who needed a hand free for the reins.
The cream keeps the coffee hot in the cold, which was the original point. Add sugar before the cream goes on, because afterwards you cannot stir it in.
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Drink Almdudler Non-alcoholic drinks
An Austrian herbal lemonade tasting of alpine meadow, drunk on its own and mixed with beer. In Austria it competes with cola for shelf space.
Mixed with beer it becomes an Almradler and is on almost every Beisl menu. The non-alcoholic answer to wine at a Heuriger is Traubensaft, fresh grape juice.
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Drink a Grüner Veltliner Local alcohol
Austria's flagship white: dry, peppery and high in acid, and a perfect match for schnitzel. At a Heuriger it is poured into quarter-litre mugs rather than wine glasses.
The new-harvest wine, Sturm, is sold only in autumn: cloudy, sweet and still fermenting. Wine cut with soda is a Gespritzter, the everyday summer drink.
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Spend an evening at a Heuriger Local alcohol
A wine tavern on the city edge where the grower pours only their own wine and the food is sold by weight: smoked meats, cheeses, Liptauer, strudel. A pine branch over the gate means it is open.
Heurigen open in rotating weeks, so check the schedule before setting out. The Grinzing and Nussdorf vineyards are inside the city limits and reachable by ordinary tram.
