What to eat
The Salzburg plate, and where to find each thing done properly.
30dishes
Showing 1-24 of 30 dishes
Paper-thin hand-pulled pastry around sliced apples, sugar, cinnamon, raisins, and buttered breadcrumbs. Baked golden. Served warm with vanilla sauce or cream. One of the great achievements of Austrian pastry. The Cafe Tomaselli version, in the oldest coffee house in Austria, has a particular authority.
Farmer's feast plate. Multiple smoked and roasted meats, sauerkraut, bread dumplings, potatoes. More food than one person needs. Best in cold months with dark beer.
Salzburg's own street food: spiced bratwurst in a white roll with onions, mustard, and curry powder. Balkan origin, fully adopted. The canonical address is Balkan Grill Walter on Getreidegasse.
Wooden board of cold cuts, cheeses, pickles, horseradish, mustard, bread. The default beer garden accompaniment. What you eat at the Augustiner or Franziskischlossl while the afternoon stretches out.
Strong black coffee in a tall glass topped with a dome of unsweetened whipped cream (Schlagobers). Named after one-horse carriage coachmen who needed to drink with one hand. Cold sweetness meets hot bitterness in each sip.
The definitive alpine spirit. Distilled from yellow gentian roots harvested by hand above the treeline. Intensely bitter, herbal, medicinal in the best sense. Destillerie Grassl is the reference. Sporrer on Getreidegasse sells it. Not for everyone, but nothing else will do.
Clear beef broth with thin strips of savoury pancake. The other half of the Austrian soup canon alongside Leberknödelsuppe. Light, elegant, deceptively simple.
Large steamed yeast dumpling filled with Powidl (concentrated plum jam). Melted butter, poppy seeds, icing sugar. The definitive Austrian mountain hut dessert. Best eaten immediately, in a warm room, in winter.
Mulled wine. Red wine heated with cinnamon, cloves, star anise, orange peel, sugar. Inseparable from the Salzburg Advent experience. Quality varies by stand. Hellbrunn Advent Market tends to have the highest quality.
Deep, paprika-rich beef stew. Austrian adaptation of the Hungarian original. Onions, sweet paprika, beef, simmered 2-3 hours. Thicker than Hungarian Gulyás. Served with bread dumplings (Semmelknödel). A bowl on a cold afternoon is one of the most satisfying things the city's food offers.
"Emperor's mess." Torn, caramelised pancake with plum jam. Reputedly named for Emperor Franz Joseph I. Enriched with whipped egg whites for lightness. On virtually every traditional Austrian menu. Best made to order. Substantial enough for a light main course.
Salzburg's cheese spaetzle. Egg-and-flour dumplings layered with melted mountain cheese and crispy fried onions. On every mountain hut menu and most city restaurants. The Pinzgauer Kasnockn is the protected regional variant.
Pressed cheese dumpling fried until crisp. The definitive mountain hut appetiser. Served in clear broth (Kaspressknödelsuppe) or dry with salad. Simple, satisfying, first thing walkers order in winter.
Clear beef broth with liver dumplings. The opening act on almost every traditional Austrian menu. With Frittatensuppe, the "two soups" of Austrian cuisine. Honest, warming, unchanged for generations.
Whole apricots in soft potato dough, boiled, rolled in toasted buttered breadcrumbs with cinnamon. The definitive Austrian summer dessert. Strictly seasonal: July-August only, when apricots are in. Outside apricot season, a disappointment.
THE Austrian coffee. Espresso + steamed milk + milk foam in a wide porcelain cup. Like a cappuccino but lighter, less foamy, lower temperature. Sipped slowly while reading a newspaper. Ordering a Melange marks you as someone who knows where they are.
Salzburg's most recognisable export. Pistachio marzipan around nougat, enrobed in dark chocolate. Created 1890 by Paul Furst. The Fürst family still hand-rolls the original at Alter Markt. Silver-and-blue foil. Fürst never patented it. If you buy them at a supermarket, you are not eating what Paul Fürst made.
Bavarian cheese spread. Overripe Camembert mashed with butter, onion, paprika, caraway, beer. Served with pretzels or dark bread. The perfect thing to eat with your first beer at the Augustiner.
Austrian crepes. Apricot jam, Nutella, Topfen, or ice cream. On every menu. The word comes from Romanian via Hungarian: Austrian cuisine absorbed freely from across the empire. Children order without hesitation. Adults pretend to hesitate.
Protected Pinzgau variant of Kasnocken. Made with Pinzgauer Bierkäse and Almkäse: more assertive, tangy. Served in the pan with green salad. Found across the Pinzgau from Zell am See to Krimml.
The most famous cake in the world. Created 1832 by sixteen-year-old Franz Sacher for Prince Metternich. Dense chocolate sponge, apricot jam, dark chocolate glaze. Hotel Sacher holds the trademark. Recipe not public. Served with unsweetened whipped cream (Schlagobers). Traditional instruction: eat without the cream. Traditional practice: eat with.
Salzburg regional: beef braised in dark beer with onions and vinegar. Rich, malty, slightly tangy. The dish locals order when visitors order Gulasch. Served with bread dumplings.
The defining dish of Salzburg. A baked soufflé of three golden peaks representing the three hills (Mönchsberg, Kapuzinerberg, Rainberg). Cloud-like texture. First documented 17th century, reputedly created for Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau's court. Never order a Nockerl if you are in a hurry.
Roast pork. The other Austrian main course alongside Wiener Schnitzel and Tafelspitz. Caraway, garlic, dark beer. Shattering crackling. Semmelknödel and braised red cabbage.
THE Austrian side dish. Bread dumplings. Alongside Gulasch, Schweinsbraten, game dishes, and anything with sauce. Without Semmelknödel, half the main courses on a traditional menu would have nothing to lean on.
White wine + sparkling water. Austria's default summer drink. Half and half. Costs less than a soft drink. Everyone drinks it. Nobody pretends it is anything more than summer in a glass.
Austria's most refined beef dish. Prime rump simmered slowly in rich broth. Served with creamed spinach, roasted potatoes, chive sauce, and horseradish cream. Emperor Franz Joseph I reportedly ate it daily. Cannot be rushed. Cannot be improved by anything except time and a good broth.
The sister dish to Apfelstrudel. Curd cheese (Topfen), raisins, lemon zest in hand-pulled pastry. Creamy and rich where Apfelstrudel is tart and fruity. Often the better choice.
The "extended" coffee. What Austrians actually drink daily. Espresso diluted with hot water. The answer to "How do I order a regular coffee?" Stronger than an Americano.
The most ordered dish in Austria. Thin veal escalope, flour-egg-breadcrumb coating, fried in clarified butter until golden and blistered. Lemon wedge. Potato-cucumber salad. The characteristic wellige (wavy) coating of a correctly fried schnitzel. On every traditional menu.
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