Eating gluten-free in Vienna

Vienna is the city of coffee houses, pastries and schnitzel, and the names alone tell you where the gluten is. Eating gluten-free still works well: Austria marks allergens on many menus with letters, and a city of this size has kitchens that know what they are doing.

Gluti offers guidance and is not a medical device. Its information does not replace medical advice.

Can you eat out gluten-free in Vienna?

Yes. With around two million people, Vienna is the largest city in the German-speaking world after Berlin, and the choice is correspondingly wide. Many kitchens are familiar with coeliac disease, and alongside the traditional Beisl, Vienna’s homely inns, there are cafés, bakeries and restaurants that cook or bake gluten-free. The places are spread across the whole city, from the Innere Stadt to the districts beyond the Gürtel ring road. So look at the map beforehand and allow for the journey; the U-Bahn gets you everywhere quickly.

Austria is part of the EU, so the same rules apply as in Germany. Restaurants must be able to tell you which of the 14 allergen groups are in a dish, and gluten is one of them. What this information does not cover is the same as anywhere: the pan that held breaded food before, the fryer shared by chips and schnitzel, the board the bread rolls are cut on. That is the part you have to ask about.

What should I know about Vienna?

The first thing is the letters. On many Viennese menus a row of capital letters follows each dish, and each letter stands for an allergen group. A means cereals containing gluten. That is handy, because you can see at a glance where flour, bread or breadcrumbs are involved. A missing A only means that gluten is not an ingredient, though. The letter says nothing about the fryer, the pan or the work surface, so ask about those.

The second thing is the language. Viennese and Austrian German have their own words, and some of them concern you directly. Brösel are breadcrumbs. A Semmel is a bread roll, Erdäpfel are potatoes, Obers is cream. And in Austria Mehlspeise, literally a flour dish, means any sweet dish, from cake to strudel, even one that should contain no flour. The word itself is not a warning sign, but most of the time it is accurate.

And the third: Vienna is a city for sitting. In a coffee house people stay a long time, order a Melange and read the paper. The display case there is full of cakes and strudel, and you will rarely find gluten-free slices in a traditional coffee house. Coffee, hot chocolate and the glass of water that comes with it unasked always work. For a cake to go with it, a café that bakes gluten-free is worth the trip.

Which Viennese dishes contain gluten?

Viennese cooking is rich in dough, breading and sauces, and the gluten is often right there in the name:

• Wiener Schnitzel: A thin veal escalope, coated in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and fried in fat. Flour is in it twice, in the first layer and in the crumbs. Some kitchens will bread it with gluten-free crumbs on request, but then the fat the ordinary schnitzels are fried in matters too.
• Kaiserschmarrn: A thick, torn pancake of flour, eggs and milk, with icing sugar and often a plum compote. The batter is made from wheat flour, so here the flour is the dish.
• Sachertorte: The city’s best-known cake, a chocolate sponge with apricot jam and a chocolate glaze. The sponge contains wheat flour. Gluten-free versions exist, but not in every patisserie.
• Apfelstrudel (apple strudel): Pastry stretched paper-thin around apples, cinnamon and raisins, often with breadcrumbs toasted in butter in the filling. Pastry and crumbs are made from wheat.
• Tafelspitz: Boiled beef in its broth, with apple horseradish, chive sauce and potatoes. The meat itself and a clear broth contain no cereal, as long as no stock powder goes in. The classic chive sauce is made with soaked bread rolls, though, and bread horseradish (Semmelkren) contains bread too. Ask about the sides and the broth.
• Gulasch (goulash): Beef with plenty of onions and paprika, braised for a long time. A good goulash gets its body from the onions alone, but many kitchens thicken it with flour. It often comes with a bread roll or a dumpling. Ask about the flour and leave out the roll.
• Germknödel: A large yeast dumpling with plum jam, poppy seeds and melted butter. The dough is made from wheat flour.
• Käsekrainer: The sausage from the sausage stand, with small pieces of cheese in the filling. The sausage itself often contains no cereal, but not every one, and it almost always comes with bread or a roll. Ask about the ingredients and leave out the bread.
• To drink: Viennese wine, Gemischter Satz and Sturm, a young, partly fermented grape must, are naturally gluten-free. Beer made from barley or wheat contains gluten unless it says “gluten-free” explicitly. Malt beer and other malt drinks are made from barley malt and contain gluten.

Your best bets are grilled meat and fish, potatoes, salad and vegetables without breading. Ask about the preparation there too, for instance whether things are fried in the same pan.

What should I watch for at a Heuriger and a sausage stand?

The Heuriger is a Viennese speciality: winegrowers on the edge of the city, for instance in Grinzing, Stammersdorf or on the Nussberg, serve their own wine with a buffet. Bread, spreads such as Liptauer, cold roast meat, cheese, salads and often fried food sit side by side, and the tongs travel from bowl to bowl. The wine is no problem for you, the buffet more so. Ask before you queue what comes fresh from the kitchen, and have some put straight on your plate before anyone else helps themselves.

At a sausage stand the same applies as at any snack bar: one fryer serves everything, the roll sits next to the sausage, and it is the same pair of tongs. Even when a sausage is gluten-free in itself, cross-contamination there is next to impossible to rule out. For an evening out, pick somewhere you know.

What do I say in a restaurant?

In Vienna you speak German, and “Ich habe Zöliakie” (I have coeliac disease) is understood, and many staff speak English too. A few Viennese words help: “ohne Brösel” (without breadcrumbs), “ohne Semmel” (without the roll), “nicht mit Mehl gebunden” (not thickened with flour). Ask explicitly about the fryer and the pan, because with schnitzel everything else goes in there too. And say that even a small amount harms you, so that nobody thinks a little breading will not matter.

The card to show works in Vienna in German, printed out or as a picture on your phone. It can go into the kitchen as it is. Which questions work in general is in the article What to ask in a restaurant.

How does Gluti help me in Vienna?

In Gluti you can see on the map which places in Vienna are listed, across all the districts. Every place is checked by the Gluti team before it appears. The level tells you how a place works: “100% gluten-free”, “Separate preparation” or “Gluten-free options”. For many places you can also see whether other people would eat gluten-free there again and what they were able to eat.

Save a few favourites near where you are staying before your visit, plus a café for the afternoon, and you will not have to start searching when hunger strikes. If you know a good place in Vienna that is missing from Gluti, you can suggest it in the app.

Even checked information is no guarantee, because things can change in a kitchen. So ask every time anyway. The background on fryers, pizza ovens and toasters is in the article on cross-contamination, and what to think about for the journey is in the guide to travelling gluten-free.