Vienna's Best Botanical Gin Bar
Bar Botanik sits inside a vaulted cellar in Vienna's 1st District, surrounded by over 200 gin bottles and shelves of dried botanicals that smell like a herbalist's dream. The bar opened in 2018 and has since become the definitive destination for gin enthusiasts in a city that has historically favored wine and Weissbier. This is the place that changed that conversation.
Head bartender Lukas Mayer trained in London before returning to Vienna with a single mission: build a serious gin programme in a city that deserved one. The result is a menu organized by botanical profile rather than origin, a curation approach that rewards curiosity. Order blindly by flavor family and you will almost always land somewhere wonderful.
The interior earns its Instagram following honestly. Exposed brick, low amber lighting, copper bar fixtures, and enough greenery hanging from the ceiling to make you wonder whether you have walked into a bar or a conservatory. Reservations are recommended Thursday through Saturday. Walk-ins are welcome earlier in the week when the room is quieter and the bartenders have time to talk through the selection properly. For more hidden gem bars in Vienna, our full guide covers the city's best-kept secrets.
What to Order at Bar Botanik
The Viennese Garden is the signature and the obvious starting point: Monkey 47 gin, elderflower, cucumber, fresh dill, and a dry tonic served in a copa glass with a sprig of lemon thyme. It is exactly what the name suggests, elegant and grounded at the same time. Budget around €17 for house cocktails and €22 for premium gin serves.
The tonic selection alone runs to 11 options, each with a recommended gin pairing printed on the menu. Staff will guide non-gin drinkers toward accessible entry points without condescension. The bar also carries a concise whisky selection for anyone accompanying a confirmed gin enthusiast.
Four drinks the editors return to.
Getting There and Best Times to Visit
Bar Botanik is on Schottengasse in the 1st District, a five-minute walk from Schottenring U-Bahn station. The entrance is discreet, marked by a small brass plaque and a wall of climbing ivy that you might walk past on your first visit. That is intentional. Tuesday and Wednesday evenings bring the best bartender-to-guest ratio: you get proper time with the menu, and the bar runs a rotating experimental cocktail available only on these nights.
The bar is 40 seats, all of them thoughtfully placed. The four stools at the bar are the best seats in the house. If you are visiting Vienna for the first time and want to understand the city's emerging cocktail scene, start here before heading to the Loos American Bar for a history lesson, or to Das Loft for the view. The three bars together give you a complete picture of what Vienna does with a drink.
Vienna's Botanical Drinking Moment
Vienna's cocktail culture has evolved fast since 2015. The city's coffee house tradition, deeply embedded in its DNA, created a population that values thoughtful hospitality and a relaxed relationship with the bar counter. Bar Botanik absorbed that influence and applied it to gin, turning what could have been a gimmick concept into a genuinely considered drinking experience.
The bar participates in Vienna Bar Week each autumn and has won best new bar awards from the Austrian bartending community. It draws a mixed crowd: tourists who researched before arriving, young Viennese professionals who made it a Thursday ritual, and the occasional distillery rep doing a masterclass to a packed cellar. All of them leave with something they had not tried before. That is the whole point. See our complete guide to the best bars in Vienna for more recommendations across the city.