Schnitzel in Vienna: Wiener Schnitzel or ‘Viennese Style’?

Order a schnitzel in Vienna and you could be served one of two dishes. They look almost identical: golden, crisp and thin. But one is veal and the other is pork, and the Viennese take the difference seriously.

The good news is that the menu nearly always tells you which one you’re getting, as long as you know what to look for.

Wiener Schnitzel means veal

In Austria, a dish sold simply as ‘Wiener Schnitzel’ is expected to be veal. That’s more than a habit: Austrian food rules treat the name as meaning veal, so if a restaurant uses any other meat, the menu has to say so.

The classic method is simple and unforgiving. A thin slice of veal is beaten flatter still, dipped in flour, then beaten egg, then breadcrumbs, and fried in plenty of hot fat until golden. There’s nowhere to hide: the meat has to be tender, the crumb crisp, and the whole thing hot from the pan.

On our menu you’ll find it in the veal section as Traditional Wiener Schnitzel (veal) with potato salad and lingonberries.

‘Wiener Art’: the Viennese-style pork schnitzel

Further down many Viennese menus you’ll see ‘Schnitzel Wiener Art’, Viennese-style schnitzel. It’s made in exactly the same way, flattened, breaded and fried, but from pork.

It isn’t a fake or a shortcut. It’s the schnitzel a great many Austrians grew up with at home, and the name is perfectly honest about what it is.

Here, that’s the Pork schnitzel ‘Viennese style’ with potato salad. It’s also the main course of our Schnitzel menu: beef broth with a liver dumpling to start, the pork schnitzel with potato salad, and Viennese apple strudel with whipped cream to finish. On a first evening in Vienna, that’s three classics in a single order.

Travelling with children? There’s a Children’s pork schnitzel with chips for them.

How to spot a good schnitzel in Vienna

Once it’s breaded, veal and pork are hard to tell apart by eye, so the menu is your best guide. A few German words help:

• Wiener Schnitzel or vom Kalb: veal.
• Wiener Art or vom Schwein: pork.
• Huhn or Hühnerbrust: chicken.
• gebacken: on a Viennese menu this means breaded and fried, not baked.

Whatever the meat, a well-made Viennese schnitzel has a few things in common. It’s thin, so it cooks quickly and stays juicy. The breadcrumb coat puffs up in little waves and lifts slightly away from the meat; in Vienna they say the crust is souffliert, puffed up like a soufflé. And it should be crisp and dry rather than oily. A good schnitzel doesn’t leave a puddle on the plate.

Potato salad, lingonberries and a wedge of lemon

What usually comes with a Wiener Schnitzel is a wedge of lemon, to squeeze over the crust, and potato salad. The Viennese kind is nothing like the creamy version you may know from home: it’s dressed with vinegar, oil and a little stock, often with onion, rather than mayonnaise. You’ll also hear it called Erdäpfelsalat. Erdäpfel, ‘earth apples’, is the Austrian word for potatoes.

Lingonberries, Preiselbeeren in German, are small, tart red berries served as a sharp, jammy compote. Think of cranberry sauce with more bite. A little with each forkful cuts through the richness of the fried crumb.

Our veal schnitzel comes with both potato salad and lingonberries. And if someone at your table doesn’t eat meat, lingonberries turn up again in the vegetarian section, with the Breaded Emmental cheese with lingonberries.

Where does the Wiener Schnitzel come from?

Ask in Vienna and someone will mention Field Marshal Radetzky. Legend has it that he brought the recipe back from Milan in the 19th century, where the cotoletta alla milanese is a close cousin of the schnitzel.

It’s a good story to tell over dinner, but historians treat it as just that: a story. What is certain is that breaded, fried dishes have been at home in Viennese kitchens for a very long time, and the veal schnitzel became the most famous of them.

Schnitzel near St Stephen’s

The Lindenkeller is the cellar restaurant at Rotenturmstraße 12, in the old town, a few minutes’ walk from St Stephen’s Cathedral. Have a look at the menu before you come.

And if you’d like to try more than schnitzel while you’re here, our guide to what to eat in Vienna covers the other classics.