Why Vienna Should Be on Every Must-Visit List Right Now
Stuck in the past no longer, the Austrian capital builds on its extraordinary history with new hotels, museums, restaurants, and more
It is Dorli, a young architect sitting alone at the magnificently renovated Café Landtmann, a former haunt of Sigmund Freud and Paul McCartney, who best explains the new, palpable energy of Vienna, one of the Old World’s grandest dames. “The Viennese were always obsessed by the past,” she says. “Now, for the first time since the flowering of the Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna is intrigued by modernity and living in the present. It’s becoming a joyous city.”
It’s been a long time coming, but Vienna has finally emerged from its post–World War II melancholy, turning into a magnet for young creatives. Regularly rated as one of the best cities in the world for its quality of life, it recently surpassed Hamburg, Germany, to become the second-largest urban center in the German-speaking world. This new vitality has ignited a travel boom: Anantara just opened the Palais Hansen Vienna Hotel, a luxurious property in a stately neo-Renaissance palace originally designed in 1873. Its 152 rooms are done in warm earth tones and come with curvy Art Deco–inspired furniture. Public areas boast an excellent Michelin-starred restaurant, a brasserie, a cocktail bar, and a spa.
Mandarin Oriental, too, has reimagined one of Vienna’s picturesque buildings, transforming a former 19th-century courthouse into a 138-room hotel. Interior design firm Goddard Littlefair drew inspiration for the serene palette of oyster, dove gray, and seafoam blue from the Vienna Secession movement, the local expression of Art Nouveau, as well as the Wiener Werkstätte, the circa-1903 artists’ collective established by architect and designer Josef Hoffmann, graphic design pioneer Koloman Moser, and patron Fritz Waerndorfer. The property surrounds a peaceful courtyard in the historic heart of the city, and its spa, one of the largest in Vienna, is a decadent draw.
These newcomers are pushing Vienna’s existing hotels to innovate, like at the 111-room Almanac Palais Vienna, which just unveiled an in-house art gallery curated in partnership with Galerie bei der Albertina • Zetter. On display are works by artists with Austrian origins, including Gustav Klimt, whose popularity sparked a themed experience. Guests of the seventh-floor Palais Suite receive unfettered access to his magnificent drawing Sitzende Dame von Vorne (Seated Lady Face-On) (1913–14), a private two-hour city tour, and entry to the Upper and Lower Belvedere Palace, home to that famous gold-leaf work The Kiss (1907–08) and the world’s largest Klimt collection.
Vienna’s quickening cultural life is also reflected in the Wien Museum, a chronological recounting of the city’s history that recently underwent a complete overhaul of its modernist 1950 building, and the pointedly avant-garde Wiener Aktionismus Museum. Reopening in early 2026 after a renovation, the institution curates provocative shows on Viennese Actionism, the radical art movement of the ’60s and ’70s.
With everything it has to offer, Vienna can be overlooked as one of the world’s greatest food cities. Its gastronomy was finally recognized this year, when the Austrian Michelin Guide gave a third star to Steirereck, number 33 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, helmed by chefs Heinz Reitbauer and Michael Bauböck. Every meal at this glass pavilion in Stadtpark begins with the world-famous bread trolley, presented by a “bread sommelier.” Blunzenbrot (bread baked with black pudding) is a menu standout, and the char poached tableside in hot beeswax and served with yellow beets, beet juice gelée, pollen grains, and sour cream is spectacular.
The other table not to miss right now is Mraz & Sohn, which holds two Michelin stars for the outstanding dishes of father-and-son culinary team Markus and Lukas Mraz. Their “No Risk, No Fun” tasting menu perfectly captures the local zeitgeist, with an ever-changing rotation drawing inspiration from around the world.
The informal, egalitarian style of Vienna’s restaurants is almost a Freudian retort to the disciplined formality that ruled Austrian society for centuries. Today, people go out for great food and good times, which is why laid-back places such as Glasswing Restaurant—where young Romanian-raised chef Alexandru Simon does unexpected offerings, including baby artichokes with Mimolette cheese, chanterelles, and nectarines—are thriving. Herzig chef Sören Herzig’s cooking intrigues by being visually minimalist but intensely creative, with entrées like lobster tempura with pumpkin, pear, and koji rice.
Although the capital’s culinary scene may skew convivial, shopping in Vienna has long been rather serious, as in Augarten porcelain and Lobmeyr glassware. Boutiques like Paperbird, a modern stationery outlet with handmade origami, notebooks, and pens, are making the scene more whimsical. Vienna has also become a fantastic place to pick up midcentury furniture and distinctive Austrian designs from the 19th and 20th centuries. Vintagerie showcases pieces by Carl Auböck, J. T. Kalmar, and Rupert Nikoll, along with icons of local design, such as the Stadthalle chair by Roland Rainer. Its painstakingly meticulous restoration workshop ensures every antique is in excellent condition.
Vienna has long had one of the world’s most famous and intricately developed café cultures; now a new generation of Viennese coffee lovers is iconoclastically embracing the single-bean, fresh-roasted-style connoisseurship of Melbourne, Australia, which is the inspiration for the three very popular outlets of The Good Coffee Society. Wine bars serving the outstanding organically made wines of Austria are also hugely popular, including the delightful R&Bar, also known as Rundbar, with its homey small-plates menu of saumaise (ground beef and pork patties cooked in caul fat), mountain cheese, and Spanishstyle croquetas de jamón. If a visitor is looking for a drink after dinner, everyone will recommend the subterranean bar Krypt, a speakeasy-type place with an innovative cocktail list running to drinks like the Chamamillionaire, which is made with mezcal, lemon, and chamomile with a Greek yogurt wash.
“I hope you won’t leave Vienna without going to Gerstner K.u.K. Hofzuckerbäcker, my favorite café and the former bakers to the Austrian Court,” declares Dorli. “The Gerstner Torte [a multilayered chocolate cake filled with Parisian cream] is heavenly. The wonderful thing about Vienna, you see, is that we cherish the old, but now we’re also embracing the new.”
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Late Fall Issue under the headline “Major Opus.” Subscribe to the magazine.