Vienna Restaurant Plachutta: Best Place for Tafelspitz

If you love beef, the Vienna restaurant Plachutta has to make it on your trip menu. Be it for their Wiener Schnitzel or, even more so, for their Tafelspitz. In fact, you can choose between six Plachutta restaurant outlets. Being a picky meat eater myself, I want top cuts or nothing. Actually, it was Plachutta who made me love Tafelspitz.

How To Get To Love Tafelspitz

Unlike any other Viennese restaurant, this family business celebrates the tradition of Viennese Tafelspitz. From a historic point of view, Tafelspitz became wildly popular in the 19th century because it was a favourite of Emperor Francis Joseph. In line with his quite frugal lifestyle, he preferred simply cooked but flavorsome food.

What is Tafelspitz? It’s a specific lean beef cut that boils in a savory vegetable broth. At its most classical, locals love their Tafelspitz with roast potatoes, spinach, and sauces of chives and horse radish. Since the dish is so simple the quality of the beef becomes essential: only the best bits create a perfect meal.

But Tafelspitz only represents one of many excellent beef cuts to choose from. For example, a Kavalierspitz represents the juice part of the shoulder, where as the Weisses Scherzel is the lean, low-fat hind leg. To facilitate my own decision making I usually go for the Gustostueckerl. These are three different pieces of beef, all lean or marbled.

The Tafelspitz Ritual At Plachutta

Vienna Restaurant Plachutta. At Plachutta, enjoying Tafelspitz turns into a multi step ritual:

First, choose which cut of beef you would like to have. To do this, leaf through the menu, which thoroughly explains and illustrates every edible part of the cow. If you are unsure, the waiters will give you a rundown of the kind of meat you may prefer. You can even experiment with salted ox tongue and the delicious larded and very juice meat from the ribs, aka Beinfleisch.

Because cooking the beef creates the flavorsome bouillon soup at the same time, you will receive both in one go. At the table, the waiter will take out the soup from the copper pot and serve it on your soup plate, together with the soup’s vegetables. You can also choose from a variety of soup inlays, such as Fritatten (thinly sliced pancake) and Griessnockerl (semolina dumplings).

For your main course, the waiter takes the beef from the big copper pan and serves it right on your plate. The meat itself comes with side dishes such as potato rösti or creamy cabbage. If your cholesterol levels allow, try the bone marrow on toasted dark bread with a pinch of salt.

Vienna Restaurant Plachutta: Practicalities

Plachutta also sells its own cook books, one of them, PLACHUTTA The Best of Viennese Cuisine is available in both English and German.

Price range (for main course): EUR 20 to EUR 25

Locations:

Plachutta Wollzeile; Wollzeile 38; A-1010 Vienna
Plachutta’s Gasthaus zur Oper; Walfischgasse 5 to 7; A-1010 Vienna
Plachutta Hietzing; Auhofstrasse 1; A-1130 Vienna
Plachutta Nussdorf; Heiligenstädterstrasse 179; A-1190 Vienna
Plachutta’s Grünspan; Ottakringer Strasse 266; A-1160 Vienna
Mario, Pasta-Grill-Bar; Lainzer Strasse 2; A-1130 Vienna

Opening hours at Wollzeile: daily; from 11:30 am to midnight; kitchen closes at 11:15 pm (inquire separately when booking for the other locations)

Bookings: (required) make your reservation here