Shop well in Vienna and you eat well at home too. The city has a remarkable concentration of delicatessens, specialty food shops, and small producers, places where the shopping itself becomes part of the experience.

Meinl am Graben and Altmann & Kühne

The first address is and remains Meinl am Graben: 1,200 square meters holding more than 17,000 regional and international delicacies, dark wood interiors, an atmosphere thick with history. Cheese, meat, fish, pasta, wine, pastry.

A few doors down on the same street: Altmann & Kühne, Vienna's smallest temptation. Handmade confections made to original old recipes, packed in their signature boxes.

For sweets with a craft angle: Zuckerlwerkstatt on Führichgasse 3, part candy workshop, part shop, where you can watch the candy being made and then taste it.

Cheese and Cured Meat: Lingenhel, Jumi, and Zum Schwarzen Kameel

In the third district, Lingenhel is the place for anyone who takes cheese seriously. Vienna's first urban cheese dairy, producing fresh goat cheese and camembert from organic goat's milk daily, alongside fine cured meats from selected European producers.

For a different kind of cheese: Jumi on Lange Gasse 28 in the eighth district, a Swiss cheese specialist with a Vienna outpost, also found at Brunnenmarkt on Saturdays.

Zum Schwarzen Kameel on Bognergasse 5 is the place for the legendary bone ham, made by the same producer to a secret recipe for more than fifty years.

At Naschmarkt and from France: Feinkost Poehl and Paul

At Naschmarkt, Feinkost Poehl has worked directly with producers for nearly thirty years, importing delicacies from France, Italy, Austria, and Spain themselves.

Anyone wanting to bring French baking home should head to Paul on Kegelgasse 37 in the third district, Vienna's first branch of the traditional French bakery founded in 1889. Baguettes, croissants, pain au chocolat, tarts, quiches, baked with flour imported from France, authentic without the kitsch.

Cheese, confections, or a baguette: Vienna's specialty food shops turn the errand itself into a small culinary trip.