Polish food in Vienna: what actually lands on your plate

Polish food in Vienna, then. Not the first thing most people pack a city break around, admittedly. But if what you're after is a plate of pierogi and a bowl of something deep red, you're in the right place: Karmeliterplatz 1, in the Leopoldstadt, Vienna's 2nd district.

One small clarification first, because we'd rather be straight with you. We're a Kulturcafé — café, kitchen, bar and a stage in the cellar, all under one roof. The kitchen has Polish roots, as do the posters on the walls and the jazz on the stereo.

And the name? Tachles (the "ch" as in a Scottish loch) comes from Yiddish and means talking straight, getting to the point. So consider this us getting to the point.

Grandmothers' recipes, weighed and measured

The recipes didn't come out of a cookbook. They're grandmothers' recipes, plus a few of our own. Magdalena Mitura, one of our founders, runs the kitchen as her own kingdom: she weighs them, measures them and improves them. Which is a very un-grandmotherly thing to do with a recipe that says "a handful". It's also why your plate tastes the same as last time.

Guests tend to tell us two things: "it's like being at home" and "it's food like my grandmother's". We'll take both.

What's on the plate

Pierogi

Pierogi are filled dumplings from the Polish kitchen, and they're our house speciality. Gault&Millau 2026 called ours "probably the best in Vienna", which we have framed in our heads, if not on the wall.

There are seven kinds on the menu (as of autumn 2026): ruskie, with potato and curd cheese; spinach; ham; "Bauern", with ham and buckwheat; tofu; cabbage with porcini; and pearl barley with porcini. The tofu and both porcini versions are vegan. They come with fried onions, one kind or a mix — and if you can't decide, the mix is the diplomatic option.

There are sweet pierogi too, with strawberry, blueberry or curd cheese, including a vegan version. The current line-up is always on the menu, and there's more about the dumplings themselves in Pierogi in Vienna.

Barszcz

Beetroot soup. Very red. That's it, really — the colour does the talking.

Bigos

Often called hunter's stew: a slow-braised dish built on cabbage. Every Polish family has an opinion on how it should be done, and none of them is neutral. We go into it properly in Bigos, barszcz and an underrated beef broth.

Beef broth with noodles

Rosół in Polish, Rindsuppe in Vienna — beef soup with noodles, and in this city a serious business. Plenty of our guests reckon ours is the best in Vienna. We didn't start that rumour. We just haven't tried very hard to stop it.

Pancakes

Naleśniki in Polish, Palatschinken in Vienna: thin pancakes, the kind two kitchens both like to claim as their own.

Szarlotka

Polish apple cake. If there's room after the pierogi, this is where it goes. If there isn't, order fewer pierogi next time. (We're joking. Mostly.)

And yes, there's spaghetti bolognese as well, for whoever at the table didn't come for Polish food. No judgement.

Around the plate

At the bar, the Polish beers Łomża and Tyskie sit next to 100 Blumen from Vienna and Murauer. There are homemade lemonades for anyone keeping things alcohol-free. In the evening, the living room simply turns into a bar.

On the walls: posters from the Polish school of poster art, from the 1960s. On the stereo: Polish jazz, sometimes classical. And on one wall, black-and-white films quietly running along.

Downstairs is the cellar stage — open stage, readings, concerts, cabaret. Since July 2026 we've worked with the Polish Institute Vienna (Polnisches Institut Wien) on evenings down there. We don't publish a calendar here, but how the cellar stage works is explained separately.

Pierogi 4 Peace

One dish on the menu is more than a dish: for every portion of Pierogi 4 Peace, a fixed amount goes to the Gruft, a Caritas-run shelter for people experiencing homelessness. The details are in Pierogi 4 Peace.

Finding us, booking a table

We're at Karmeliterplatz 1, 1020 Wien, in the Karmeliterviertel — a Grätzl, as the Viennese call a neighbourhood. By public transport: U1 to Nestroyplatz, U2 to Taborstraße, tram 2 or bus 5A. Current opening hours are at the bottom of every page.

There's no delivery and no online ordering, so no pierogi to your hotel room, sorry. Book a table by phone on +43 1 212 03 58, by email at tachles@gmx.at or via the reservation form.

Come in, sit down, order the mix. Talking helps. So do pierogi.