10 of Vienna’s biggest restaurant gardens where you’ll almost always get a table

Il Sestante is one of the best places for an authentic pizza in Vienna. From a woodfire oven, they serve real Neapolitan pizza pies (said with the appropriate hand gesture and with our best Italian accent). Located in the heart of the 8th district, this large and very popular restaurant is always bustling. While they also offer different traditional Italian dishes – pasta, fish and meat – their pizza is what they’re famous for, and for good reason.

Sharing the vast cobblestone space in front of the Maria Treu Kirche, their al fresco garden is big enough for everybody. Well, it’s not, but it sure can cater to dozens of people!

After you’ve done some summertime drinking at this massive & slick new brewpub, you’ll never look at the Donauturm on the horizon the same, ever again.

The view is now impressive from above, and below, at the Donauturm. The Donau Bräu boasts its own beer brew and a menu full of burgers, ribs and other pub grub.

They have their own brew, the ‘Turmbier,’ which is a light, and fruity beer that is made for summer days sitting in their massive beer garden. That’s right, the Donaubräu has one of the biggest and greenest beer gardens in the city that you’ll easily be convinced to spend your whole afternoon sitting in.

As it backs onto the park, there’s green for as far as the eye can see.

Check out our full review of the Donau Bräu.

This huge beer garden is an institution amongst those who know it. It sits riverside, so it’s got that going for it, and then there’s the menu full of Austrian classics that have been adapted to look hip and tasty on the plate. The ribs here have people around the city salivating over them just when thinking about them.

Be sure to book ahead, as this is one popular spot, however, their garden is one of the biggest.

It calls itself a pizzeria, but it’s a damn fine tapas restaurant.

Its garden enclosed in a courtyard is a typical setting you’d see in Spain – a white walled, massive courtyard, filled with big groups of people, floored with gravel, red and white table clothes – is like another world which one could easily walk by everyday along Thaliastraße, without knowing it exists.

The servings here are big, so don’t be turned off by the prices attached to the tapas.

Oh, and it has the Italian theme because Fillipo opened the place 25 years ago when Italian restaurants were popular and familiar to the shy Viennese diners, so you could say it was a marketing decision. However, over the last 10 years, Filippo has integrated the kitchen of his homeland, Spain, which has earned the place its reputation amongst those who know of it.

Ok, so Heuer is one popular place, especially when it’s got its garden out during the warmer months, however, it is one of the bigger gardens in the city, so you might have more luck than at other places when trying to reserve a table.

Located on the little grassy island amidst the traffic at Karlsplatz lives Heuer – a restaurant/ cafe that possesses one of the most beautiful al fresco dining and drinking areas in the city. The huge terrace and garden out front, made up of tables and chairs along with sofa seating, is often full on a warm summer’s evening. The urban garden, Karlsgarten, next door also makes it extra pleasant. The music is typically chilled electro, or some kind of jazz, or Electroswing. It’s a inescapably ‘urban’ feel at HEUER am Karlsplatz.

If the occasion ever arose, the Schweizerhaus would be one of the few restaurants in the city that could feed a small town in one evening sitting. No idea why a whole town would ever go for dinner together, but our point is – the famous Schweizerhaus is huge and is used to serving up food and drinks to crowds of hundreds. While most people turn up here for their famous pork Stelze (pork knuckle), their menu is populated by a bunch of other Austrian classics.

As their normally packed to the brim with tourists, now is a probably good time to hit up the Schweizerhaus when all the tourists are out of town. Just sayin’

Café Diglas on Schottengasse may look like just another traditional Viennese coffeehouses in the first district, but when you walk through the café to the back, well, you’re in for a surprise! Awaiting you will be a huge green oasis of a garden from the coffeehouse where you’re surrounded by chestnut trees.

Framed by the walls of the Museum of applied arts, the MAK, is the Salonplafond restaurant’s summer garden. Their modern and cosmopolitan kitchen is staffed by chefs that know that they’re doing when it comes to making flavoursome food, while their drinks list is eclectic. Their menu selection is not vast, but its a well-curated mix of dishes, from pasta, to fancy-sounding fish and Fleisch dishes.

This Turkish restaurant’s fame has managed to reach far beyond the community from which it grew and is now the automatic immediate answer when somebody asks, ‘what’s a good Turkish place in town?’

Their restaurant off of the busy Brunnenmarkt, is their original (they now have 4) and the garden hidden out the back of it, is a hidden gem. Tables and chairs are set up all over the place on this white gravel al fresco setting, while the bare red brick wall adds an extra rustic charm to the garden. All the good things the Turkish kitchen is famous for are made with talent here – the Köfte, Kebap, the Pide, Baklava, all of it.

With the Stiegl-Ambulanz surrounded by the greenery of the Altes AKH Uni campus, it’s got one of the biggest beer gardens in the city in one of the most idyllic settings. The menu will have you chowing down on what you’d expect in an Austrian beer garden – spare ribs, and Schnitzel. Meanwhile, there are international eats thrown in to the mix, like burgers and a club sandwich, along with a few vegetarian options. And, seeing as its named after one of the biggest brews in Austria, Stiegl, you’ve probably already guessed that it’s all about the beer, here. They do have a small selection of Austrian wines, as well.