These 5 places are serving up Schnitzels bigger than your plate

The Schnitzel portion at Gasthaus Kopp is so big, they don’t serve it up on a plate, but rather a wooden cutting board. And it almost covers the cutting board. It also comes with a pile of fries on the side.

There’s something about this Gasthaus that makes us feel like regulars, even though it is our first visit.

The place is decorated with random stuff – old metal plates with classic Austrian brands on the walls, shelves filled with flea market ceramic pints and – this one’s our favourite – a plastic life-sized rooster aloft the bar. The place smells like the fried food coming out of the kitchen, the lighting is weird and there’s freaky little men and women embroidered onto the farmhouse table cloth.

There’s plenty of choice when it comes to Schnitzel at Kopp. There is a long line of Schnitzels one can order here, including some “original” creations, most priced under 10€ (except the Wiener Schnitzel, of course).

Gasthaus Kopp is an experience, and you will leave with severe meat sweats after downing one of their Schnitzels, so unless you think you can handle this, we recommend sharing.

Located on the far side of what the locals call Transdanubien (meaning the otherworldly region over the Danube river), the Leopoldauer Alm may not have landed on your radar before reading these lines. In this stand alone location, where the high rise apartment buildings of the city are no longer in sight, looks to mirror on its insides the look of an Austrian alps Hütte, with all of its wood-covered, beer swilling cosiness. The waiters wear Lederhosen while the waitresses are in Dirndl.

Whether you think of this as Kitsch, or an experience, Leopoldauer All is serving up one of the biggest Schnitzel serves in the city. And they should be. We mean, they are a self-proclaimed XXL restaurant (we didn’t even know this was a thing before coming across this place). It’s won a couple of prizes in this category as an XXL restaurant as one of the best in the German-speaking world.

In terms of ‘what kind of monster animal did that come from?!!’ kind of Schnitzels, you can go the ‘Schnitzelplatte’ which is a platter big enough to feed a small family, but recommended for two. Then there’s the XXL-Schnitzel for those that don’t like sharing food (even if the food is larger than their head).

If you’ve got space in your belly for it, we’d recommend washing the ‘Schnitzi’ down with one of their house beers.

Nordpol 3’s Wiener Schnitzel here is the real deal. The portion is huge, while the Schnitzel tastes by the book. It may be pricey, but it lives up to the Euros you’ll invest in it. Unlike most monster Schnitzel’s the quality and flavour will drive you to finish this one.

Nordpol 3 is a Bohemian restaurant packed with character and hidden in the 2nd district. It’s got a Schanigarten amidst a quiet park and its insides look like the living room of a antique collector.

Am Nordpol 3 is the place to mention when somebody asks you to name a spot to get a really original Wiener Schnitzel away from the tourist crowds.

Over 200,000 Schnitzels are served up at this celebrity of the Schnitzel place per year, and as you can imagine, there must be a reason for that. It’s previous life was lived as a family-run Heurigen (wine tavern) in Vienna’s outer districts, and today it stands as one of a family-run Schnitzel empire and is one of the most famous restaurants in the city. And it’s earned its name for their Schnitzels that are bigger than the plate they’re served on.

The breadcrumb coating is thin and isn’t weighed down by oil like most schnitzels, while the pork is also beat up in the kitchen until its a thin strip. And while finishing one on your own requires a fasting beforehand, and a hungry determination, it doesn’t leave you with that bloated feeling afterwards that most serves of this deep-fried meal will.

The house speciality Schnitzel at the two Figlmüller locations (see where you’ll find them above) is made out of pork, unlike the traditional Wiener Schnitzel which you won’t find on the menu at their flagship location down Wollzeile, yet is served in their Bäckerstrasse. Their potato salad (which is made fresh, several times a day) has also earned minor fame as an THE accompanying dish to have with their frisbee-looking Schnitzels.

It’s not rare to see a line snaking for miles out the front of Figlmüller, therefore we recommend you try to reserve days in advance.

Schnitzelwirt is a place full of surprises – from the first one that awaited us at the entrance when we were confronted by some 6 to 8 people waiting in the entrance to be seated, slightly crammed in the little space in front of the bar inhaling other’s cigarette smoke, to the novelty bar stools that make anybody who sit on them look like they’re wearing a pair of good old Lederhosen.

A few minutes in, a lady in a dirndl with boobs exploding out of the top sees us to our table. The menus, shaped like beer jugs, hang next to the jackets on the coat hanger beside us. The place is packed, the tablecloth is stained, there’s fake flowers on the table and the service is slow – but aren’t these often hints for awesomely tasting food that simply takes time (ok, maybe not the fake flowers thing).

The Schnitzels are HUUUUUU (insert more ‘U’ to emphasise size) GE here at Schnitzelwirt. Ok, to get real with you, your schnitzel serve will normally come in two pieces, but whatever Schnitzel you choose here, a part of it will be sagging off the side of your plate.

Looking through the menu you’ll notice that the light snack section starts with “Baked ham on salad”. It’s at this point that we already feel the food-coma of the upcoming Schnitzels that we’re about to enter. The variety of Schnitzels goes from Paris to Mexico (use your imagination to think of what these involve), but we choose the Viennese-style.

We assume Schnitzelwirt’s glowing reviews on the net have more to do with the mammoth size, than their taste, however, their Schnitzels are tasty, well fried (meaning the meat isn’t tough, yet succulent) and are made for stuffing yourself silly. And their prices are also amongst the more affordable compared to the other places in this list.

We’d say Schnitzelwirt is the kind of place you want to tick off the bucket-list once, and then never look back.