Cafés, restaurants, and kiosks in and around Schönbrunn Palace: where to eat and drink during your visit.
Schönbrunn has two notable cafés inside the estate — Café Residenz at the courtyard and Café Gloriette on the hill — and the surrounding Hietzing district is full of options, from Wiener schnitzel and Tafelspitz to the legendary Café Dommayer that played host to Johann Strauss II in 1844. Combine this with the visitors guide if you're planning a half-day, and the opening hours for café times.
Inside the courtyard, Café Residenz serves a full Viennese menu — Wiener schnitzel, Tafelspitz, goulash — with a famous hourly Apfelstrudel show in its in-house bakery (11:00–17:00, every hour). Main courses around €18–24. Up on the hill, Café Gloriette under the marble pavilion serves a lighter menu — soups, salads, sandwiches and excellent cake — with a panoramic view of Vienna. For a proper sit-down lunch, Plachutta Hietzing on Auhofstraße is one of the city's great Tafelspitz restaurants, a 6-minute walk from Schönbrunn U-Bahn.
Viennese coffee at Café Residenz — a Melange around €5.50, an Einspänner €5.80, an espresso €3.80. The Wiener Schnaps menu starts at €5. Austrian wine by the glass (Grüner Veltliner, Zweigelt, Blaufränkisch) from late morning. Card and contactless are universal. Inside the gardens, kiosks sell coffee, beer, ice cream and pretzels at lower prices. The Schönbrunn Palace Concerts in the Orangerie include a champagne reception in the ticket.
Café Dommayer at Dommayergasse 1 — founded in 1787, the room where Johann Strauss II made his conducting debut in 1844; still serves first-class coffee, Sachertorte and Apfelstrudel. Plachutta Hietzing for the finest Tafelspitz in Vienna. Quell on Reinprechtsdorfer Straße for traditional Wiener Schnitzel. For something casual, the kiosks along Schönbrunner Schloßstraße sell Käsekrainer sausages and beer for under €10.
The smartest itinerary is a 09:30 Grand Tour palace slot, a Melange and Apfelstrudel at Café Residenz around 11:30 (catch the strudel show), a stroll along the Great Parterre, lunch on the Café Gloriette terrace overlooking Vienna at 13:00, then the Palm House or the Tiergarten zoo in the afternoon. From the zoo gates it's a 6-minute walk to Café Dommayer for a late-afternoon coffee in the room where Strauss conducted in 1844, then U4 back to central Vienna for dinner.
If you're here for the Schönbrunn Palace Concerts at 20:30, dinner at Plachutta Hietzing at 18:30 followed by a walk back through the lamp-lit gardens to the Orangerie is one of the great evening sequences in Vienna — book Plachutta a few days ahead.
What's available, prices, and dietary needs