Salzburg food we loved: an honest eating guide

I did not come to Salzburg expecting to think much about food. I came expecting Mozart and the fortress and a beautiful Baroque city. The food caught me by surprise — not because Salzburg has a celebrated culinary scene (it does not, particularly) but because it has several specific things that are genuinely excellent and would be famous in a city that was better at publicising itself.

Here is what we actually loved, in the order we encountered it.

Breakfast: good bread and mediocre coffee

Austrian bread is excellent. The Bäckerei in Salzburg — small bakeries that operate as neighbourhood institutions — produce pretzels, Mohnbeugel (poppy seed rolls), Semmel (the soft white rolls used throughout Austria), and a variety of dark breads that are better than most equivalents in Germany or France.

The coffee is more complicated. Austria invented the coffee house culture that Central Europe depends on, but this means they are still making the same coffee they made in 1890. The Melange (half espresso, half steamed milk) is what you order, and it is good. Flat whites and third-wave coffee culture have arrived in Salzburg but are not widespread. Do not expect Melbourne.

Café Tomaselli (Alter Markt 9) has been operating since 1705 and shows it: the interior is formal, the service is efficient and slightly impersonal, the pastries are excellent. It is touristy. It is also genuinely one of the older continuously operating establishments in Austria and should be visited for a morning coffee on the basis that some things earn their reputation. Sit inside rather than outside — the outdoor seating is for tourists photographing the square; the interior is the actual experience.

Lunch: the Mittagsmenü principle

Austrian lunch culture runs on the Mittagsmenü: a two or three-course set lunch, usually soup plus a main course plus perhaps dessert, for €12–18 per person. These menus are served from 11:30 to 14:00 and represent by far the best value eating in Austria.

The Bärenwirt (Sterneckstrasse 17, right bank) is where we had our best lunch in Salzburg. The Tafelspitz — boiled beef brisket with horseradish and chive sauce, bone marrow on the side — is the Mittagsmenü anchor at €15.50. The quality is consistent; the room is a proper Austrian Gasthaus with wood panelling, checked tablecloths, and other people eating lunch for functional reasons rather than tourism. This is a recommendation I would make to anyone, regardless of budget.

The Augustiner Bräustübl

The Augustiner Bräustübl needs its own entry because it does not fit into conventional restaurant categories.

It is a Augustinian monastery brewery at Lindhofstrasse 7, established in 1621, operating now as a beer garden complex that seats approximately 2,000 people. You enter through the gates, navigate to the beer hall (enormous, stone-floored, smelling of yeast and wood), rinse your ceramic mug in a trough of cold water, and collect it full of Augustiner beer directly from a wooden counter. Then you find a table — in the garden under the chestnut trees in summer, or in the arcaded stone hall in winter — and eat from the food stalls: roast chicken, giant pretzels, Obatzda (the Bavarian cheese spread with butter and caraway), radishes, smoked meats.

The beer is unfiltered and remarkable. The atmosphere is unlike anything purpose-built. On a summer evening, Salzburg residents arrive with families and friends and stay for two or three hours. This is not primarily a tourist destination; it is where Salzburg goes to drink beer.

We went twice. I would have gone a third time.

Stiegl Brewery tour with beer tasting — Stiegl is the other Salzburg beer institution, with a purpose-built brewery museum that is a better experience than it sounds.

Salzburger Nockerl

The Salzburger Nockerl is Salzburg’s signature dessert: three large baked meringue soufflé mounds, served in the baking dish, representing (allegedly) the three hills of the Mönchsberg, Kapuzinerberg, and Gaisberg. It is sweet, light, and must be eaten immediately — it deflates within minutes of emerging from the oven.

The guide to the Salzburger Nockerl explains the dish in more detail. For the experience: order it at a table-service restaurant where they are willing to bake it to order and you have 20 minutes to wait. It is made for two people (one portion is enough for two to share). The M32 restaurant on the Mönchsberg does a good version; so does the Stiftskeller St. Peter.

Do not order it at a tourist restaurant where it has been waiting in a warming cabinet. The Nockerl does not survive a warming cabinet.

The real Mozartkugel

The Fürst confectionery at Brodgasse 13 makes the original Mozartkugel by hand. This is not marketing language: Paul Fürst created the recipe in 1890, and the family has been making it in the same way since. The shell is dark chocolate; inside is a layer of pale Pistazienmarzipan (pistachio marzipan), then a core of nougat. The proportions are different from the commercial versions — more marzipan, less chocolate, and the whole thing is smaller and denser.

It costs approximately €2–3 per piece, compared to €0.80–1.20 for the commercial versions on every other stall. The difference in quality is not subtle.

The commercial Mozartkugel — Reber (red and gold wrapping), Mirabell (red and gold, made by a confectionery company in Germany) — is not bad chocolate. It is simply not what it claims to be. The Fürst version is the original. The real Mozartkugel guide covers the full history.

Dinner: what we actually chose

We ate dinner at three non-tourist restaurants over four nights. The Triangel (Wiener Philharmoniker Gasse 7) is the best-known serious restaurant in the city, favoured by Festival performers and the city’s professional class. The cooking is classical Austrian with seasonal adjustments — we had venison in October, with red cabbage and Semmelknödel (bread dumplings) that were better than anything I have eaten in Vienna. Book in advance.

The Stiftskeller St. Peter (St. Peter Bezirk 1/4, in the cellars below St. Peter’s Abbey) is the restaurant I mentioned to my partner when I got home as the place I would most like to have returned to. The setting — stone arches, candles, a courtyard below the Mönchsberg cliff — is matched by cooking that takes the Austrian tradition seriously without being fusty. The wine list focuses on Austrian wines, which are much better than their export reputation suggests.

What we skipped and why

The restaurant on Getreidegasse with the menu in eight languages. Any place with a photograph of food on the menu outside. The “traditional Austrian” restaurant in the Domplatz area that had a tout standing at the door directing people inside.

These are not specific recommendations of places not to go. They are a type — the type that exists in every major tourist city, that serves adequate food at inflated prices in exchange for proximity to the main attractions. Salzburg’s alternatives are close enough that there is never a reason to default to the obvious options.

The Salzburg food guide has more specific restaurant recommendations by category and neighbourhood.