Austria: Vienna: Places: An Art-Lover's Guide to Vienna

An Art-Lover's Guide to Vienna

Vienna has more than 100 museums and monuments—from imperial collections to cutting-edge contemporary displays—and it’s impossible to see more than a fraction during a single visit. My advice would be to tour a few well-chosen sights in-depth instead of cramming in numerous sights. The Hofburg complex, for instance, contains several museums, chapels and staterooms, including the Treasury and stunning National Library, and it deserves at least a half-day of touring.

To help guide you through the city’s immense offerings, here is a suggested three-day itinerary that covers the city’s musts. The itinerary is based around central Vienna, where hotels include the Sacher, the Imperial, the Grand and the Ring.

Private guides can be arranged; contact us at 212-988-2611 or by email for an introduction.

DAY 1

MORNING

Arrive and check in. Take a walk through the neighborhood to get your bearings. The Sacher is located right across the street from the State Opera House. From the hotel, a nice stroll is up Kärntner Strasse, home to such boutiques as Lobmeyer and renowned pâtisserie Demel.

LUNCH:

Option 1—Fancy

Sacher: There is a nice restaurant (Anna Sacher) in the hotel, which serves a more elaborate lunch, as well as the venerable Sacher café, a classic, with an abbreviated menu of Austrian dishes. The setting is old-world Vienna and the menu is heavily focused on hearty Austrian cuisine.

Option 2— Relaxed But Refined

Palmenhaus: This local restaurant is located in a soaring glass-paneled conservatory in the middle of the Burggarten, a leafy park in walking distance to the Sacher. Some nice non-meat options on the ultra-fresh menu (very seasonal market cuisine).

AFTERNOON:

Spend the afternoon at the Albertina museum which is housed in a beautiful, meticulously restored palace that dates to the late 1600s. It has one of the world’s largest graphic art collections, including drawings by Dürer, Michelangelo and Rembrandt, as well as changing special exhibitions.

Have Viennese coffee and pastries at one of the city’s most venerable Kaffeehäuser (cafes): Café Griensteidel, about a 7-minute walk from the Albertina. It overlooks the Baroque Michaelerplatz, is one of the few in the city that’s entirely non-smoking.

DINNER:

Option 1—Big Night Out

Palais Coburg: This is arguably Vienna’s fanciest restaurants in terms of the setting and dress code, and one of only three in Vienna with a Michelin star. Located in a neoclassical palace, the dining room is as sleek and understated as the cuisine is innovative and gourmet. If you come for dinner, ask the concierge making the reservation to arrange a pre-dinner cellar tour: the Palais has one of Europe’s best wine cellars, which won Wine Spectator’s Grand Award in 2007.

Option 2—Relaxed but Refined

Plachutta: Don’t be put off by the photos of celebrity visitors decorating the walls and the cookbooks on sale at the entrance of this restaurant: the initial impression may be “tourist trap,” but in fact Plachutta is frequented by locals who come for the excellent Tafelspitz (boiled beef). Guests choose from a long list of different cuts of meat as well as an array of side dishes, including creamed spinach with roasted potatoes and apples with horseradish sauce. It’s authentic Vienna. Non-carnivores, meanwhile, should try Wrenkh: it’s not 100 percent vegetarian (there are meat and seafood dishes on the menu as well), but chef Christian Wrenkh creates beautiful and sophisticated dishes with seasonal ingredients. The setting is very relaxed, like a minimalist bistro. Centrally located, Wrenkh is close to some of the city’s best bars for an aperitif; my suggestion would be the seventh-floor bar at Do & Co.

DAY 2

MORNING:

Make your way over to the Hofburg, the Imperial Palace housed in a huge, sprawling complex that was home to the Hapsburg royal family until 1918. Museum-wise, it includes an embarrassment of riches: the Treasury and Museum of Ethnology, the Spanish Riding School, Imperial Court Chapel and National Library. Don’t miss the beautiful Augustinerkirche, the church where Emperor Franz Joseph and Elisabeth (known as Sissi) were wed.

LUNCH:

From the Hofburg, walk across the street to the Museumsquartier (MQ), the city’s more contemporary space for art. Have lunch at the relaxed Café Milo, in a lovely dining room with a colorful tiled ceiling that recalls a Turkish hammam. Another option is Halle, situated in the Emperor’s Loge of the former riding hall, the multilevel space has stucco ceilings, flowing gauze curtains and specials written on large chalkboards (the menu changes weekly).

AFTERNOON:

The Museumsquarter is made up of several museums but the one not to miss is the Leopold Museum, home of more than forty luminous works by Egon Schiele, as well as Klimt, Kokoschka, Moser and Gerstl. Before leaving the MQ, be sure to stop by MQ Point, the museum complex’s store that carries the work of many contemporary designers.

DINNER:

Option 1—Big Night Out

Indochine 21: It may be counter-intuitive to go for innovative Asian fusion cuisine in land-locked Vienna, but chef Wini Brugger, who spent thirteen years working in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Saigon, is renowned as one of the city’s best. His dishes put a creative spin on East Asia and prominently feature seafood. En route to Indochine 21 (with a taxi), you can stop at the Imperial.

Option 2—Relaxed but Refined

For a local dining experience, book a table in the Art Nouveau dining room of Zum Schwarzen Kameel, near St. Stephen’s Cathedral and about a 10-minute walk from the Sacher. A nice spot for a pre-dinner glass of Grüner Veltliner is the small bar at Meinl Am Graben.

DAY 3

MORNING:

Take the twenty-minute taxi drive out to the sprawling Schönbrunn Palace —think of it as Vienna’s Versailles—the summer residence of the royal family. Schönbrunn has more than a 1,400 sumptuous rococo rooms of which visitors can tour forty. Before you leave, explore the beautiful surrounding gardens and have a coffee at the lovely Café Gloriette. If there is time, the turn-of-the-century cages of the zoo are worth seeing and for some very authentic mementoes, head to the Gasthaus Tirolergarten, a typical Tyrolean farmhouse (it’s near the wolves’ cages, but can also be accessed from the Schönbrunn park) that sells homemade honey.

LUNCH:

There are several restaurant options at Schönbrunn that are nice for a light lunch. For something more culinary, however, you have to take a taxi back to the city.

Optional: En route back to Vienna, fans of Art Nouveau architecture should consider taking an extra 15-minute drive to the Kirche am Steinhof, an Otto Wagner marvel with stained glass mosaics by Koloman Moser. It was recently renovated an is open to the public on Saturday only. From the Kirche back to central Vienna, it’s about a 20-minute drive.

AFTERNOON OPTIONS: Depending on what you still want to see/discover in Vienna, here are three options.

DINNER:

Option 1—Big Night Out

Steiereck: In a lovely location in the Stadtpark (city park), the Steiereck is consistently ranked among the city’s top four restaurants and its prix fixe dinners are multi-course affairs that are expertly matched with Austrian vintages. This would be a really special gourmet conclusion to a trip to Vienna.

Option 2—Relaxed but Refined

Österreicher: Adjacent to the Museum of Applied Arts, the Österreicher is one of Vienna’s coolest places for a casual dinner, served in a soaring space that’s an innovative blend of old and new. Chef Helmut Österreicher’s menu is literally divided into two sections: “classic” and “modern.”

Notes on the Shopping Scene:

Shopping will never be the focus of a trip to Vienna, but these boutiques are worth seeking out, if you have time, for unique Austrian finds:

Of course, the museum stores at the Museum of Applied Arts and the Museumsquartier are also worth checking out.

— Simone Girner 10/26/2009