7. Austria. Fischer’s, Marylebone

A few weeks before I met Alf at Fischer’s, a Viennese-style café/restaurant on Marylebone high street, I’d actually been on holiday to Vienna. That trip had left me with a few, not altogether positive, impressions of the central-European country’s capital. I wondered if a London transplant of one of its turn-of-the-(last)-century coffee and food joints would be anything like those back home.

Because Vienna is a strange place. Unless you’re a Klimt fan, it’s a bit of a dull city to visit. All bars and restaurants close around 11pm, tourists are often made to feel very unwelcome and, well, there’s not that much to do. There are precisely three types of retail outlet there: designer jewellery/watch emporiums, art galleries, and odd shops selling weird knick knacks (think toy pigs playing violins). And the food is exceedingly expensive for quite basic stuff. I mean, it’s fine, but when you’re paying 10 Euros for a hotdog, or 24 Euros for a wiener-schnitzel, you kinda expect something amazing. What you get is usually quite bland and uninspiring. The best meal I ate there was at a fantastic Israeli joint.

So, I entered Fischer’s with some trepidation. Would it exude the smug, unfriendly and trading-on-past-glories style of Vienna, or would it be refreshingly different?

Inside, it’s undeniably atmospheric and certainly transports you to Vienna (or at least, a certain idea of Vienna from about 120 years ago). The tiled, polished floors, the paintings on the walls, the low lights and deep brown wood panelling on the walls, all look and feel exactly like many of the places I’d visited in the country’s capital. If you want to feel like your in the Vienna, Fischer’s is the place.

Alf and I ordered two lagers (sadly Austria doesn’t seem to dabble in the diversity of beers their close neighbours in southern-Germany specialise in) before perusing the menu.

Just like the old-time décor, Fischer’s had got the Viennese food and pricing down to a tee. A Wiener Schnitzel (essentially a small amount of flattened, breaded, deep fried calf meat) for £28.75. The cheapest sausages, £16.50. Chips, £5.50.

OK, I’ll give them that they’re on Marylebone high street, surely one of the most expensive rents in London. But still, at those prices it’s really only a place for the very well heeled, which a glance at the other clientele confirmed was indeed the case. It just felt snobbish!

In the end, we both opted for the Prix-Fixe, which provided three courses for £29.75. We both started with a borscht (cold beetroot soup), I got grilled sea bream and Alf a spatchcock chicken. Neither came with sides. We both got a chocolate cake for desert.

All this tasted very nice, was well presented, and efficiently – if not amicably – served.

One personal bugbear was that they added on a tip of 15%. That really did annoy me, since we’d had three different waiters and it’s 50% higher than the standard tips in most UK restaurants. I mentioned this to the waiter who pointed out that he doesn’t set the tip rate. I guess the owners know what their market can absorb…

If you want the experience of eating out in Vienna, I think Fischer’s actually does a really good job. The food is nice (indeed, arguably better than the dry schnitzels I had when I visited Austria), the décor is attractive and you certainly feel like you’re in the country’s capital. For me, however, the prices, snobbishness and devotion to the past, just served to remind me of all the things I disliked about that city.

Score: 6.5/10

Cost: £75 (2 beers, 2 prix-fixe plus 15% tip)

Location: 50 Marylebone High St, W1U 5HN