Mraz & Sohn

Where to Stay, Eat, and Drink in Vienna

"A family-run, Michelin two-starred restaurant in Vienna's 20th district that stages lengthy, highly inventive multi-course meals: the writer describes being deep into a 15-plate run that mixed 'sublimity, subversion, and occasional eruptions of out-and-out weirdness' and singled out a miniature döner kebab made not with lamb but shoulder of venison on a flatbread incorporating dark poppyseed. Other specific plates mentioned include charred-leek pappardelle in a sauce of aged Emmenthaler, a porcini-foam consommé, shrimp sashimi with umeboshi mayo, and something called 'Fig-alize It.' The service theatrics are notable — one of the owners, Manuel Mraz, 'wheeled a bookshelf-size cheese cart through the spare white dining room to our table' — and he explained the restaurant's role in changing local dining patterns: 'People sometimes ask us whether this neighborhood is even still in Vienna. Even twenty years ago, when my brother and I grew up here, this area was seen as great for affordable dining, but too far out of the way for most people. What's different now is that they're more willing to go for an adventure beyond the inner districts.'" - Travel + Leisure Editors