Vegan in Vienna: Three vegan-friendly restaurants

The last time I went to Vienna was probably half my life ago. Really. Yep, that long ago. It was probably still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire when I last arrived. I remember two things about the city from my last visit: it had some awesome art, and some equally awesome food.

Looks like not much has changed since then.

During our four days in the city, we checked out the Schiele exhibition at the Leopold Museum, the Klimt friezes at the Secession, the Imperial Crypt, the Vienna Woods... but you want to hear about the food, right?

We arrived in the city fairly late in the day and, after a bit of a walk around, we stopped off at Bio Bar von Antun, a little vegetarian restaurant near the Stefansdom cathedral in the centre of town. The weather was great and the place has some outside space - a tiny courtyard - that we took full advantage of.

We kicked off with some Rusticiana 'oven bread' - bruschetta with herbs, garlic and olive oil.

It was heavy on the garlic and herbs, which is good in my book. Other than that, it was bread. What more can I tell you?

For a follow-up, I picked cevapcici - sort of fish finger shaped, slightly-spiced hamburgers. Mr Flicking the Vs got chilli con tofu you can see in the background. 

The fried spuds were nice, but the cevapcici weren't terribly flavourful - they reminded me of those packet mixes you add water to to make veggie sausages. The plate definitely could have done with some veggies on there too - I would have been happy to see even a gherkin in amongst it! 

The chilli con tofu was also lacking - not a huge amount of chilli considering its name. And then there was the rice puzzle - it said on the menu it would be on the side, but it came all mixed in with the chilli, making a sort of chilli rice soup. It was all fine stuff, but there are tastier meals to be had in Vienna. That said, the location and the service are so nice, you'll not be doing yourself a disservice if you stop by for a drink or a small bite.

We ended up eating at Yamm twice when we were in Vienna: once deliberately, once by accident.

Yamm is a sort-of-self-service, sort-of-not restaurant not far from Vienna's University and Parliament. If you've been to Tibits, it's sort of like that, only more confusing. 

Like Tibits, there's a great big appealing buffet in the middle that you go and help yourself to. You pick a plate, fill it up with what you want, and weigh it. 

Unlike Tibits, Only you have to get a card, put it on a contactless card reader once you've finished piling your plate, weigh your food, pick up your receipt and card, and go sit down. Then a waiter takes your drink order. If you want any dessert, you go and eyeball what's in the cabinet, then you have to sit back down, and get the server to bring the dessert to you.

It's a bit of a faff to be honest, but don't let the messing about put you off - there's some great scran to be had. And, because it's a buffet, there's no waiting and you can pick up exactly what you want. The buffet is veggie, rather than vegan, but the vegan bits are clearly marked and there are a goodly number of them. 

I made myself this plate - look, lots of veggies!

There's even a mung bean salad there, alongside all the other stuff. I ate this and felt virtuous.

Then I thought I'd undo all my good work with a great big slice of cake. There were about five different vegan gateaux to try, and a few different varieties of cupcake and biscuits to boot. I went for the walnut cake - oddly enough, the dessert all the English-speaking people had been ordering that day, the server told us.

The English speaking people were definitely onto a winner. To be honest, the walnut cake wasn't overly walnutty, but when a piece of gateau looks like that, who cares? There was enough icing to decorate your house with and some lovely light cake to keep it all in.

So I wasn't overly disappointed when we were back there the next day, although not deliberately. We had planned to eat at a place called Landia not far from the Naschmarkt, where we'd stopped in for a wander and a drink. Despite getting to Landia at 8pm - two hours before it was meant to shut - and found the staff putting chairs on tables, despite a couple of diners still eating outside. They told us they were shut. We were a bit lost.

We didn't have a back up plan, there was no wi-fi to be had, and so with no better plan, we wandered back to Yamm.

What we didn't know at the time was that the amazing Swing Kitchen is just around the corner from Landia.

Swing Kitchen is a burger bar that only serves vegan burgers and plays swing music. Sounds promising already, no?

Well, it was just good as it sounded. Great, big sloppy burgers the size of a wrestler's fist, classic burger bar sides, and homemade sodas. There were even some delicious looking vegan cakes for afters, but the burgers were so good, and so big, I couldn't have tried one even if I wanted to.

The burgers. Let me tell you about the burgers. Mr Flicking the Vs went for a Swing Cheeseburger, I went for the Vienna Burger.

Mine was truly great - a big bap, tomato, cucumber, garlic sauce, pickles and a great big Vienna schnitzel. This is definitely messy, multi-serviette good. The coleslaw was equally delicious, but given the size of the burger, a bit superfluous if not entirely welcome.

Bio Bar von Antun
http://www.biobar.at/index.htm
Drahtgasse 3, 1010 Vienna
antun@biobar.at
+43 1 968 9351

Yamm
http://www.yamm.at/
Universitätsring 10, 1010 Vienna
+43 1 5320544
office@yamm.at

Swing Kitchen
http://www.swingkitchen.com/
Schottenfeldgasse 3, 1070 Vienna