Vienna: You mean something to me | District 5

Like Joseph Cotton in The Third Man, my arrival into downtown Vienna was not auspicious: no Harry Lime, not even any zither music. No Mozart either, unless you count local entrepreneurs in fancy dress performing a variety of the classics. I also narrowly avoided death by Segway: tourists en route to $100 horse and trap tours.

This is District 1, the Vienna of grand facades, UNESCO heritage, and baroque splendour. But like the jewels of Italy — Florence and Venice — it has been overrun by sightseers, its beauty strangled. By all means have a bratwurst outside the Albertina, the Leopold or the Museum of Modern Art; there is culture flowing through the cobbled streets, enhanced by striking architecture. Bookshops too – proper ones – and coffee shops like Pruckel, where homemade apple strudel and double mocha is a fiver in modishly retro surroundings.

Its proximity to the U4 subway line put those fancy Mozarts just a 10 minute ride away. But they seemed further

However it’s District 5 you need. A product of the “Red” period of Vienna’s rich political history, here you’ll find imposing socialist housing. They aren’t bastardised Bauhaus tower block schemes; they are sturdy apartment buildings of clean line, with generous amounts of living space. My hotel, The Falkensteiner, was of a more recent era but remained stubbornly plain and modernist, erring on the side of utilitarian. Its proximity to the U4 subway line put those fancy Mozarts just a 10 minute ride away. But they seemed further.

The best feature is Nashmarkt, a long, spindly twin for London’s Portobello Road: fruit and veg, flea market tat, and antiques on a Saturday. It represents the border between Districts 4 and 6 for about a mile, gentrifying as it goes. The streets off the market vary from artisanal to bonkers. The Michaela Stock gallery features artists such as the late Tomislav Gotovac, Croatia’s most famous nudist and film maker, whose capacity to offend is best encapsulated in the work Jebo Me Bog (Fuck me God). There’s an Austrian version of Books for Cooks and, of all things, a Scottish supermarket. Look out also for Mimi Mandl’s cool homeware and Helene Ziniel’s farm-to-table grocery.

Food is good in Vienna, (who doesn’t adore a national dish that’s pan fried in breadcrumbs?) and the two best restaurants are the modernist Steirereck (pictured, top) and the traditional Walter Bauer, both devilishly difficult to get into, but worthwhile. District 5’s hidden gem, Gasthaus Woracziczky, is tiny, modern, and cool, a former corner shop secreted up a residential cul-de-sac. Its muted interior palette echoes Farrow and Ball, complete with tongue and groove, and the two amiable, bilingual owners had me at a starter of fragrant beef consomme with superlight cheese dumplings followed by sweetbreads. The place is named after Count Woracziczky, a wine pioneer, so glasses of Austrian pinot blanc and zweigelt go down well.

Like Midge Ure, Vienna once meant nothing to me. He should have wandered off down to District 5. C

vienna.info