L'Osteria Wien Bräunerstraße — Restaurant in Vienna

after visiting the Hofburg Palace and the Royal Lipazzan Stallions show, we came out hungry for lunch. It was damn hot and rather than look in a wider area we decided to just eat at the first place we found as we walked towards the underground. L’Osteria was the place and a very lucky find indeed. Part of a larger chain. Big place with an outdoor dining area that was doing booming business in pizza during our visit. Two notes on pizza’s here which, we didn’t order. One, an amazing number of people, including many women surprisingly, ordered whole pizzas for themselves. The pies were at least 16 inches, a size that we usually see enjoyed by two back home. But no, it was one for each. Maybe a plan to have leftovers, don’t know. Also different, the pizza came to the table unsliced. It was up to the diner to knife and fork it any way they chose. Could you have asked staff to assist maybe. Never saw it and it was interesting to see different techniques.

With the withering heat, we both chose to eat fairly light. The choice for my DW was a simple tomato and burrata salad with fresh basil and simply dressed with EVOO and fresh cracked black pepper. As with 95% of our orders this trip, the tomatoes were outstanding and it’s hard to go wrong with fresh burrata under any circumstances. The dish was perfect. My starter mista salad was excellent just mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumber in a house dressing. dressing was light on flavor but let the vegetables shine through. I chose the risotto funghi-risotto cooked in a white wine, onion, and garlic broth plus two different kinds of mushrooms as my entrée. It’s rare I choose to order a dish that doesn’t include any animal protein (sorry carnivore here) but this dish turned out to be a great choice for a hot day. delicious flavor profile and risotto cooked perfectly. nary a speck was left behind. service was a bit slow with the number of diners here but not annoyingly. one of the few places we dined in during our trip that brought us a carafe of ice-cold water for no additional charge. very welcome....

Well, I am glad I found this gem while searching for restaurants on Google. I wanted some tasty Italian food, and this place exceeded my expectations. First of all, the pizza is MASSIVE. Any pizza can feed 2 hungry people. And for around $10-15 for a pizza, that is pretty good! Their staff is incredibly kind and funny as well. This is NOT air conditioned so it is hot.

Pizza: their margherita pizza was fantastic. It was so big they cut it in half and brought on two plates. Sure it’s a simple pizza, but they served it beautifully with one large basil leaf on each slice (6 slices total). The pizza was very thin and the inside parts were very soft and got harder as you got to the crunchy crust (may not be how you prefer pizza but I loved it).

Their pasta was unbelievable. I ordered the pasta with a simple marinara sauce thinking that this was going to be the “Olive Garden” or even store bought box pasta and sauce quality I expect from the US, but this blew me away. The pasta is fresh (if not homemade, made locally). They cooked it to be perfectly al dente (the noodles had just enough of a bite to really be tasty without going too soft and mealy). The sauce was robust and thick, clinging on to each noodle as you spin it around for a bite. Absolutely incredible.

Overall 5/5 for a fantastic experience and a happy belly.

UPDATE: Came again the next night and had an absolutely splendid vegetarian pizza and a pasta with beef strips, sweet peppers, and a lemon mascarpone sauce. The pizza was awesome (wish it more vegetables on it) and the pasta was outstanding. The pasta was almost like an elevated macaroni and cheese, with a more decadent and creamy sauce with a citrus tinge. The perfectly seared beef strips and aromatic arugula (called “rocket”) made the dish...

Previously went here in Salzbury and loved it. We wanted to come back. However, this location was not like our first experience. First of all, when we walked into L'Osteria, there was no host to greet us, which was fine. I approached a server and asked if we could seat ourselves. He curtly said no without offering any further information. We patiently waited for five minutes, giving the staff the benefit of the doubt. The same server eventually came back and asked how many were in our party. We said two, and he told us to wait a moment. He seemed to look for a table but never returned with an update. We continued to stand there until another server finally pointed us to a table.

Despite the rough start, we tried to overlook it, assuming they were busy. However, things took a bizarre turn after we had ordered and received our drinks. Our server approached and asked us to move to accommodate a group sitting next to us. We were shocked but stood up unwillingly. Then, unbelievably, the group—who seemed to be friends of the server—changed their minds, and the server told us to return to our original table. I have never been asked to move tables in the middle of a meal, let alone be told to go back to my original table after moving. This was an absurd and humiliating experience.

To top it off, when we tried to pay for our food, we couldn't find our server. After waiting and searching, we had to ask another server for help. We then saw that server pull in our server from a smoke break. This was the final straw. Despite the decent food, the service was atrocious. I will never come here again and cannot recommend this place if you want...