3 Best Restaurants in Vienna, Austria

The easiest way for Viennese to experience sleek, suave, New York–style power dining—short of paying for a round-trip plane ticket—is to book a table at this Italian hot spot in the heart of Vienna. If they can, that is. Wait-listed weeks in advance, this modernist extravaganza has brought a touch of big-city glamour to Alt Wien, and everyone from foodies to fashionistas loves it. Seafood is so fresh it's flown in daily for the kitchen to prepare specialties, such as shrimp marinated in lemon and served on a bed of Tuscan beans, or roasted sea bass in a couscous salad of cucumber and avocado. For beef eaters, the chef prepares a special piquant sauce poured over a rib-eye steak.

This fashionable establishment is in the basement of the 19th-century Vienna Stock Exchange and shares an enormous space with the flower shop Lederleitner. The chef creates a new menu of Mediterranean specialties each week. If you have a light appetite, ask for a smaller portion. Although this eatery is named after Theophil Hansen—the ornament-crazy architect of the Börse—the decor is sleek and modern; note the superb contemporary artwork adorning the walls.