Vienna’s Naschmarkt is a place for grazing and gently indulging. Plan to mooch and munch for a few hours.
- VIENNA TRAVEL TIP: To enjoy the best of Vienna’s Naschmarkt, tasting from the stalls as you go, book on to a Naschmarkt food tour.
Naschmarkt cheese stall
The woman behind the glass counter at Käseland, one of the oldest cheese shops in Vienna, looks a little flustered. “It is a little crowded,” she says apologetically as she shifts her wares around. “Because I have a new cheese.”
The interloper is found a slot amongst Spanish blue cheeses, a herb-flecked, butterlike Alpen Frisch Käse and one leftfield option with cranberry sprinkled all over the rind. It takes a great deal of willpower not to offer to buy everything in the shop.
Goods for sale at Vienna’s Naschmarkt
Visiting the Naschmarkt provokes a response a little along the lines of opening a posh bottle of wine when it’s not even a special occasion. Or getting into clean bedsheets when the previous set didn’t really need changing. The gleeful “oh go on then” factor is huge.
Wandering around is a recipe for feeling gluttonous. Freshly-caught langoustines are spread out on ice, windows fill with jars of caviar, cabinets pile high with dried meats and apricot liqueurs are laid out on tables. One minute its nuts, dried fruits and spices poured diligently into 100g bags, the next it’s olives and ouzos, chocolates and cakelets.
Grazing at Vienna’s Naschmarkt
To call the Naschmarkt a mere market is significantly underselling it. It stretches between the two carriageways of the main road slicing Vienna in half, and a good proportion of the sturdy huts are basically restaurants rather than market stalls. They specialise in everything from Italian style prawns, to teppanyaki and dim sum. Others have shelves stacked with bottles of gruner veltliner and Zweigelt, but they act more like wine bars than places to stock up the cellar from.
And they stay open late: The Naschmarkt is not one of those functional places where people do their shopping then disappear. It’s very much a place to hang out, and that applies well after the sun sets.
Freihausviertal neighbourhood
The vibe slips over into neighbouring Freihausviertel, where the line between café, restaurant and bar is left deliberately ambiguous, scooter to seems to be the preferred mode of transport and small but distinctive remains the order of the day.
The Alt Wien Kaffee roastery makes magic out of big metal tubs of coffee beans from Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Ethiopia and more. Babette’s sells niche cookbooks – Russian food, Swedish cuisine, salads, ice creams – at the front, and spice mixes ranging from Afghani saffron to Fijian curry at the back. To those of you rubbing your hands with enthusiastic anticipation, you are forgiven. In these parts, you’re by no means alone.
More Vienna travel
For a wide range of Vienna travel experiences, head over this way. Alternatively, check out Planet Whitley’s Leopoldstadt neighbourhood guide or learn the incredible stories inside Vienna’s Museum of Art Fakes.
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