Skopik & Lohn

Horst Scheuer and Manuel Stark opened Skopik & Lohn in 2006 in a former workshop on Leopoldsgasse near the Karmelitermarkt — the painter Otto Zitko covered the ceiling and one wall with continuous black ink scribbles before opening, and the room became, within a couple of years, the defining example of the 2. Bezirk's new register: a working Beisl menu (Tafelspitz, Wiener Schnitzel, Frittatensuppe, Powidltascherl) at honest prices in a contemporary-art setting. The room takes the form of the Viennese Beisl seriously — paper tablecloths, the bread on the table, the wine list pulled from small Austrian growers — without the kitsch the form can lapse into elsewhere. Karmelitermarkt is two minutes' walk south.