10 restaurants where dining out is a social experience

As soon as Mama Liu & Sons opened its doors, it has been recruiting fans. This may have something to do with how cool the place looks, and how flavoursome their hot pot setups are. Here’s how it works: there’s a hotplate in the centre of your table, and on that hotplate, you place a pot, and in that pot, you pour broth, and in that broth, you cook all manner of meat, fish and veg. It’s fun.

They’ve got tables that fit a table of ten, and more intimate setups.

Besides some damn good dim sums, you turn up at Mama Liu for the hot pot.

Oh, and their cocktail game is strong, too, if you feel like ordering a pot of them too.

Located near Schwedenplatz in the 1st district, Babida is one of the younger Korean restaurants joining the ranks. This popular place is serving up a variety of dishes from the owner’s childhood, ranging from Bibimbap and Kimchi Stew to Korean Fried Chicken.

They’re also proving to be a popular spot amongst hot potters (no, that is not a hot version of Harry Potter lookalikes – sorry, lame). Their hot pot and Korean BBQ are both great options if you’re looking to enjoy a long, drawn-out meal with your mates in which you get to interact with your food.

Their hot pots come in 3 varieties – Bulgogi Jeongol (Beef), Kimchi Jeongol, and Gamja  Tang (Pork Back). If you’re new to hot potting, it’s very simple – you get a huge pot of tasty soup broth in the middle of the table and you and your dinner party go ahead and throw stuff in (well, you don’t have to throw it), including a bunch of raw ingredients out of the East Asian kitchen.

Their Korean BBQ doesn’t have as much variety, but you can choose between Galbisal (Beef) and Samgyopsal (Pork). Korean BBQ is as it sounds – a BBQ-like hot plate is placed in the middle of the table and you and your mates get to work grilling up all kinds of marinade meats and veggies.

Sura has been around for a surprisingly long time in the Korean restaurant scene, with an origin story dating back to 1992. However, the restaurant really took off when they renovated their interior and changed up their menu.

You might know the Sura restaurant from their famous Korean Style Corndogs that they sold out their window during the Corona lockdown (they were all over TikTok and IG).

Their menu includes all the favourites of the Korean kitchen, while they also have a few Japanese nuances, like in their side dishes (for example, their Wakame Salad)

The social dining experience at Sura comes in the form of Korean BBQ. This will have you, and the crowd you come with, grilling up all kinds of raw stuff, including plenty of meat and veggie options, right at your table.

You can start Korean BBQ-ing from a minimum of two people, and you can choose from a variety of BBQ sets, from Bulgogi (with marinated beef and various vegetables) to a pork belly set.

The communal cooking experience that comes with Korean BBQ is always good fun.

This modest, yet popular small Korean restaurant in Vienna’s 2nd district will have you chowing down on Kimchi and grilling up your own meal on a table-top grill, while loving every minute of it.  Seekers of Korean kitchen know this little family-run restaurant as one of the go-to places in the city for the all-round dining experience of the Korean-style BBQ.

The unfamiliar menu may seem rather strange to those uneducated on the Korean kitchen, but the staff here are happy to walk you through it. For us, the choice is simple – the gogigui (Korean BBQ) for two. ´

After a Miso and a few golden gyozas, you will have a gas cooker and grill placed in front of you and then the non-stop train of plates starts coming at you. Starting with salad leaves, garlic, chilies, mushrooms, onion rings, and finally, the thin slices of marinated beef – it just keeps coming. Korean BBQ is a great social dining option for a meal with a group of friends. Read our full review of Seoul restaurant, here.

Brösl is one of the city’s gastro scenes greatest hits. Their kitchen is dynamic, pumping out different creations each day, all in tapas-sized portions. The food is made for sharing, but after your first bite, you probably won’t want to.

Trying to put this restaurant’s cuisine scene into a box is difficult, as it pulls inspiration from all over the globe in its dishes. You do notice they have Austrian roots, but this doesn’t define them. One thing that they do stay true to is that all of their dishes are farm to table, as in they’re prepared with regional and organic ingredients.

The old Gasthaus it’s set in is a lovely setting for a night of dining with friends, while they have a great alfresco garden set on a quiet street in the warmer months.

You can think of the food here as local tapas. Simple food that’s surprising in taste.

Yori is a large, low-lit Korean restaurant in Vienna’s first district that has been a go-to for quality Korean cuisine for a while. The atmosphere is chilled and the interior takes care of setting up a special kind of mood (wood latticing is a big thing here).

The Korean BBQ here is unforgettable. They are serving it up in different sets. Naturally, all sets contain beef.

MOMO Pizza gourmet, or MOMO for short, is doing things their own way with pizza – from their pizza creations to the whole pizza experience. You see, at MOMO, each pizza comes in 2 sizes – one being your normal size and the other being a little smaller. By offering up the smaller one, MOMO aims to encourage people to put a variety of their pizza creations in the middle of the table and share. The only thing they didn’t think about is that because their pizzas are so good, it makes it hard to share.

Their menu is divided into the Bianche pizzas and those with tomato sauce and is full of delightfully delicious pizza masterpieces. The atmosphere with MOMO is also the kind of place you feel comfortable getting messy eating a pizza with your hands.

They do a magnificent job of whisking you off down to the coast of Spain for a couple of hours at Toma tu Tiempo.

They also do tasty tapas in small portions that are enormous in flavour that you’ll not want to share with your fellow diners, however, probably will out of social pressure (damn social pressure, again).

Take the marinated chorizo with the green peppers or the Gambas al ajillo (aka. garlic prawns) – like we said: simple pleasures. You can make up a nice spread of meats, cheeses, pickled fish, and olives from their cold tapas, or you can indulge in the warm stuff. If you’re feeling adventurous, or too lazy to make decisions yourself, you can ask for the random chef’s mix, which will be comprised of his recommendations of the day. Oh, and the Patatas Bravas con tres salsas come with 3 flavoursome sauces (worth mentioning).

This handsome place serves up a diverse range of tapas that can be shared around large wooden tables in the middle of the restaurant, which seems to inspire togetherness and familial dining.

Der Fuchs und die Trauben offers the perfect vibe to enjoy some nice drinks and small snacks whilst socializing with your friends while sharing food.

In terms of tapas, we recommend  gyoza, croquettas, pinchitos (pork kebab), manchego with a fig and brandy chutney, polpette (meatballs in a spicy marinara sauce) and zigarette boerek (pastry rolled with sheep cheese and caramelized onions). The gyoza and croquettas are our favourite, but everything is delicious. If you wanna find out more about this awesome place, read our full review on Der Fuchs und die Trauben.

One could dream oneself quite easily into a tavern in the south of Spain at the tapas bar in Vienna’s 8th district, Puerta Del Sol. And the tapas they serve up in small ceramic dishes are just as authentic (and delicious) in taste as the look of the place. This may explain why it’s often full here.

The Chorizo al Vino Tinto is highly recommendable, along with the Patatas Bravas (boasting a mildly spicy, highly tasty red sauce), creamy garlic chicken, and the grilled marinated pork skewers. Oh, and you’ll probably want to share various bottles of the wonderful wine they have the names of scrawled across a big blackboard in the main dining area.

Find out more in our full review about Puerta Del Sol.