Vegan Vienna: Ice cream shops, bakeries, and why not to take tofu through airports

If you've read my earlier post on the few vegan friendly restaurants I tried, you'll know that I ate very well in the Austrian capital. That's not the half of it though. Vienna is blessed with what look like, to my poor London eyes, a vast number of sweet treat emporia. Being a selfless type, I worked my way around them for you, dear reader.

The first place we stopped at was Cupcakes, a cafe chain which has a branch in Mumok, Vienna's museum of modern art. You don't have to be going to the museum to go and have some coffee and cake (we were off to the excellent Leopold Museum over the road) so we went in to test their wares.

While the 1950s surrendered wife vibe of the decor wasn't my thing, I couldn't complain about the cupcakes. Along with a number of omni options, there were also three vegan choices. I went for the chocolate one and a black coffee to wash it down with.

While the icing to cake ratio proved that you can have too much of a good thing, I had Mr Flicking the Vs on hand to share with. (You know if I have to share a dessert, there really is too much. I'm not normally one to give away cake willingly.)

The museum quarter also has an all vegan cake shop in the form of the Easy Going Bakery. It's a small but perfectly formed place with a few seats, so you can either get your cake to go or sit down and while away the time with a brew.

There were muffins, cupcakes, cake pops and more available on our visit, as well as the hot and cold drinks you'd expect. Being a gloriously sunny day in Vienna, I got an iced coffee and two mini cupcakes – dainty little things that a hungry Joey could put away in a few bites. I like mini desserts for that reason – you get to try a bit of everything. In my case, everything was a rather restrained chocolate and vanilla cupcake and a matcha and raspberry. The latter won the day by a country mile. (Side note: the lady behind the til was incredibly lovely.)

Though it's a bit of a tough call, I'd say the museum quarter's biggest asset is Veganista, the vegan ice cream shop. I went there twice during my four days in Vienna – the first day, I got this rather restrained cone:

That's a boule of cappuccino ice cream there. I love coffee ice cream – and I can't think of when I've had a nicer version than Veganista's. I went back the next day for a double scoop – more of that lovely coffee, with some peanut butter for good measure. It was a warm Sunday afternoon and there must have been a queue of about 30 people there. I didn't mind the wait though – more time to contemplate all the flavours!

That's a boule of cappuccino ice cream there. I love coffee ice cream – and I can't think of when I've had a nicer version than Veganista's. I went back the next day for a double scoop – more of that lovely coffee, with some peanut butter for good measure. It was a warm Sunday afternoon and there must have been a queue of about 30 people there. I didn't mind the wait though – more time to contemplate all the flavours!

But Veganista isn't the only vegan ice cream option in town (though it is absolutely the best!) If you see a branch of Zanoni and Zanoni on your way around Vienna, don't discount it out of hand – it does have a number of vegan options. Here's some dark chocolate I scored:

While I didn't have a lot of time to cruise Vienna's vegan food shops, one discovery I thought I'd mention is supermarket chain Spar, which has lots of interesting vegan options, particularly if you can find a Spar Gourmet branch. Along with the usual health foods and non-dairy milk, their free-from section has some goodies including a six pack of mini Tartex pates, vegan filled pasta, tofu, veggie burgers and that sort of thing. Handily, most of the food doesn't need refrigerating - handy if you're on the road. We bought some tofu and burgers in case we felt like cooking, but never got around to it, so ended up bringing them back to the UK.

Top tip - blocks of tofu in your bag will get you stopped at the airport by the guys doing the bag scanning (I guess it looks like you're carrying too much liquid in hand baggage?), who will then laugh heartily when they find you're packing bean curd.