A taste of Vienna

Vienna is the capital of Austria and takes the 1st place in the list of cities with the best quality of living, according to the Mercer magazine survey. Vienna is not only famous for its imperial palaces like the Belvedere Palace and the Schönbrunn Palace and the famous musicians like Beethoven and Mozart, but also for its culinary delights. Have you ever wondered why "Viennese cuisine" is the only cuisine in the world to be named after a city? Do you know what is special about the Viennese coffee? You can easily find your answers by booking a Vienna hotel and trying yourself the delicious Viennese food and experiencing the coffee traditions of the beautiful capital.

Viennese food reflects the way that lots of diverse nationalities mixed in the city throughout the centuries. The must-eat in Vienna is of course "Wiener Schnitzel", which is fried escalopes with breadcrumbs. It has Italian origins and is usually offered with potato salad as a side dish. Pork and chicken have the leading role in Viennese cuisine nowadays. However, there are some traditional dishes with beef, such as the classic Tafelspitz, which is boiled fillet of beef haunch. Another typical dish is goulash with Sacher sausages. Gulash has Hungarian origins and was adopted by the Austrian cuisine during the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. It is a spicy dish of beef with tomato sauce, accompanied by thin and long Viennese sausages made of beef and pork. If you are a budget traveller, you can enjoy the delicious Austrian fast food dish called Bosna or Bosner, which resembles a hot dog and can be found almost everywhere around the streets of Vienna. You may also try a Leberkäse, which consists of corned beef, pork, bacon and onions and is served in roll bread.

Everyone enjoys coffee after a delicious lunch or together with breakfast. For the Viennese people though, it is more than that. Viennese café tradition plays an important part in Viennese culture and origins back to the 17th century. Austrians claim to have invented the procedure of filtering the coffee and turning it into the delicious drink that we all know by mixing it with milk and sugar. During the late 19th and early 20th century, leading writers, artists, famous scientists and politicians of the time were constant visitors in the Viennese coffee houses, where they would be found working or meeting to exchange ideas.

Coffee in Austria is often accompanied by a cake or dessert. One of the finest is the hot apple strudel, served with whipped cream. Once you go to Vienna, do not miss trying the world famous Sachertorte, a dry chocolate cake with apricot jam, originally created by the Sacher Hotel in Vienna, which has kept the recipe secret. Another famous speciality is cheese danish, a wafer-thin strudel pastry filled with sweet cheese and raisins. If you have the luck to visit Vienna during Christmas, then you could also try the delicious sweets named Krapfen, which have German origins and can often be found filled with fruit jam. They are served warm and covered with powdered sugar in the Viennese Christmas markets.

There are hotels in Vienna that have restaurants and cafés, where you can try all these delicacies described above. You can also ask the locals for advice about which place near your hotel in Vienna is the best for a traditional meal or a unique coffee experience. Can you resist the temptation?