August 14, 2015 by: The Meandering Canadian You cannot come to Vienna and not eat the famous Wiener Schnitzel! Seriously guys, they will stamp your passport to confirm that you have had this dish and you won't be allowed out of the city until you have proof that you've enjoyed this dish. So where do you go for famous Wiener Schnitzel? Figlmuller!
The restaurant is just down the street from St. Stephen's church. If you don't make reservations for the original restaurant then fret not - there is another location down the street. You can get a seat in the bigger location fairly quickly. When we raced around the corner we thought that we wouldn't get a spot in this location either - there was a lineup out the door! After waiting around 5-10 minutes we were seated. It seems that everyone here comes for the same thing so we were served fairly quickly. We had the schnitzel and potato salad - classic! The schnitzel, please keep in mind I'm not expert, was ah-maz-ing! The potato salad? Not so much. It was very mustard-y and vinegary. This is perfectly fine; I just don't like mustard so my potatoes went untouched. One schnitzel was more than enough for dinner; it's bigger than the plate!
After we stuffed ourselves silly we went out for a concert at the Golden Hall in one of the music houses. If you are a visitor to Vienna you will see concerts for sale everywhere downtown. The men are all dressed up as classical styled musicians - wigs and all. Come to think of it, there were no women selling tickets. Weird. I would have totally wanted to buy a ticket from a woman in a huge classical styled dress. Someone should write the tour company. Anyways, we went to the concert to enjoy some classical music.
As soon as we walked in I understood why they called this room the Golden Hall. It was beautiful inside. I'm going to take a moment here to rant: if you are coming to one of these please dress appropriately. I understand that not everyone can afford Gucci (I can't either) or floor length ball gowns but try to dress up a little bit. There were people who were wearing ripped jeans and short shorts. Ok, the rant is over! The musicians went through Mozart, Schubert and Strauss. There were also opera singers present who sang some of the songs. The music was beautiful and a treat to listen to. The last song was cute - the conductor got everyone to clap along. All-in-all it was an enjoyable evening.