Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place vs. home

Posts tagged ‘Plachutta’

25T59 Tafelspitz: Vienna favourite at Plachutta Hietzing

E58, V06.

I’m in the mood for a slow sit-down meal of the highest order. Yeah, it’s gonna cost me, and it’ll be pasta and pesto or bread and cheese the next few nights, but it’s time here and now, that I say hello once again to Plachutta and their modern version of the imperial Tafelspitz.

There are many beef cuts to choose from the menu, but I’ll go what brought me here the first time: the Tafelspitz cut. I provided a longer and more flavourful description here, but here are today’s highlights.

The Plachutta restaurant in Hietzing, Vienna’s 13th district. Take the U4 to Hietzing station and walk, or hop on tram 10 or 60 at Hietzing station for the 1 stop to Dommayergasse.
“An-eighth” (0.125L) glass of Gemischter Satz (centre), a local specialty that’s grown in vineyards within and around the city of Vienna. I also have a big bottle of carbonated mineral water. Yes, drunk separately; I’m no heathen.
Simple bread and rolls, with whipped garlic butter or regular butter.
The big pot, with side pots (top) with creamed spinach and fried potatoes; at lower right are chive cream sauce and apple horseradish sauce.
Hot savory beef broth ladled over a small bowl filled with ribbons of sliced pancake.
Beef marrow spread over toasted rye bread.
The slab of the slow-simmered rump-roast cut: simultaneously lean and fatty, moist, tender, not dry; cut root-vegetables; creamed spinach; fried potatoes; and big dollops of sauces.
Against better judgement (which is the moment I walked in the door), I get caramel ice cream to cool off a big warm hearty meal on a warm summer day. (There’s outdoor patio seating, but they’ve got the A/C working hard inside.)

I received neither support nor compensation for this piece. I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 5 July 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

Vienna Tafelspitz: Habsburg dish at Plachutta Hietzing

What appears to be a plate of slow simmered beef is anything but “simple”.

“Tafelspitz is a dish with a lot going on,” said Austrian chef Kurt Gutenbrunner to the New York Times in 2002. “It’s hot, cold, spicy, creamy, crunchy and soft.”

Eaten daily by Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph I (1830-1916), the dish is well-known among Vienna favourites. Among members of the Jewish community of the time, the Tafelspitz was a beloved symbol of assimilation in late 19th-century/early 20th-century Vienna.

Reading about the description for Tafelspitz brings about a sharp childhood memory of a soup made by Mum. Tender chunks of chuck roast, accompanied by carrots, potatoes, celery, shards of ginger root, and often with apple to provide extra sweet; cooked slow and simmering in a huge pot on the stovetop for hours. The resulting soup was a meal on its own, or served as a final course at dinner.

Plachutta is well-known among the Viennese for making some of the best Tafelspitz in the city. A big Plachutta is located centrally in the inner city, but I head west to the city’s 13th district for their original Stammhaus location in Hietzing. It’s fitting somehow that the Hietzing location is close to the Habsburg summer palace at Schönbrunn.

The images show a wonderful spread with the Tafelspitz dish with my choice of the Tafelspitz or rump steak cut. I started with the long slow simmered soup broth, ladled out into a bowl with big chunks of egg frittata. And provided within a bowl of soup are specific details of family dinner: nourishing, caring, satisfying.

After a section of slow-cooked bone is presented, I spread the soft gelatinous marrow onto slices of toasted dark bread, with a light sprinkle of salt and pepper. Next, slices of moist tender slow-cooked beef are laid onto a plate, along with crunchy fried potatoes, creamed spinach, apple-horseradish sauce, and chive sauce.

Certainly, I paid more for this meal compared to others, but the Plachutta Tafelspitz was a great dining experience, providing a new memory of Viennese cuisine, combined with family memories of home-cooked food.

( Click here for images and more )