Graz · Ratgeber
Eating in Graz, sorted by district
Graz has a reputation as a city for eating well, and that is one of the few tourist-board slogans there is little to argue with. Said less often is that the places are spread very unevenly across the city — which is why the area you sleep in decides more about your evenings than the range of restaurants as a whole.
Our OpenStreetMap extract counts, for the Graz city area, more than two hundred and fifty restaurants, close to two hundred cafés and over a hundred pubs and bars — more than six hundred places in all, over two hundred of them with an outdoor area recorded. The most common cuisine recorded is, by a wide margin, regional, followed by Italian and pizza. That is not a ranking by quality; it is a map of density. And that is more telling than it sounds.
Innere Stadt — wine taverns and coffee houses
The highest density in the city, but with a list to one side: most of what stands here is traditional and most of it is expensive. The clusters are around Färberplatz, Mehlplatz, Prokopigasse and Franziskanerplatz — four squares you can walk between in five minutes.
The wine taverns are what marks the district out: Die Herzl (Prokopigasse 12), the Gamlitzer Weinstube (Mehlplatz 4), the Franziskanerkeller (Kapaunplatz 5). Then the coffee houses — Café Herzog (Herrengasse 6), Sorger (Sporgasse 4), the old Café Erzherzog Johann (Sackstraße 3–5).
What has opened in between is fitted in remarkably quietly: Ramen Makotoya (Sporgasse 11), El Pescador (Landhausgasse 6), Hops Craft Beer Pub (Prokopigasse 14). The old town has modernised without losing its wine taverns, and that is rare.
The catch: in the evening the area is full, and the prices follow the address. Eat here and you pay for the location as well.
Lend — the most interesting choice
If one district in Graz has changed over the past fifteen years, it is this one. Around the Lendplatz and the Mariahilferstraße stands the densest and clearly the most international selection in the city.
On the Lendplatz alone: Lendplatzl (regional, Lendplatz 11), Zur Steirerstub’n (Lendplatz 8), Hommage (Lendplatz 7), Bakaλiko (Greek, Lendplatz 1), Chivito and La Meskla (both Latin American, Lendplatz 40). Plus the Bauernmarkt, the farmers’ market on the square itself, with food stalls of its own.
One street on, along the Mariahilferstraße, eating turns into going out: Brot & Spiele (no. 17), Miles Jazzbar (no. 24), Ginger Bar (no. 26), Rangoon (no. 15). And in the Stockergasse Die Scherbe, which is an institution.
The catch: it is loud. Anyone staying in Lend who wants an early night should ask for the courtyard side.
Gries — the cheapest corner
South of that, beyond the Griesplatz, it gets cheaper and less polished. The choice is strongly Turkish, Balkan and East African: Lezzet Sofrası (Griesplatz 24), Grill am Gries (Nikolaiplatz 4a), Meet me there (Griesgasse 50), Nivan (Albert-Schweitzer-Gasse 49). Then Al Fiume at Grieskai 38 and the Postgarage in the Dreihackengasse, which is a venue rather than a café.
Gries is the district where you eat your fill most cheaply in Graz. It is also the one that appears on no glossy page.
Jakomini — cooking from around the world
South-east of the old town, around Schönaugasse, Grazbachgasse and Dietrichsteinplatz, is the broadest international choice in the city — not as a concept, but grown that way: Café ABOL (Ethiopian, Schönaugasse 16), Chopan (Afghan, Schönaugasse 12), Himalaya Masala (Grazbachgasse 35), Restaurant Mekong (Vietnamese, Grazbachgasse 42), Bao Bar (Dietrichsteinplatz 16), Isaan Thai (Klosterwiesgasse 13), Zimt (Persian, Jakoministraße 19).
The plain end holds its ground alongside: Pirsch Stüberl and Corti in the Münzgrabenstraße, s’Biertgartl im Ritterwirt in the Schönaugasse.
The catch: the distances are longer than in the old town. Jakomini is not a square you walk round but a grid in which you head for a target.
Geidorf — the university quarter
To the north-east, around the Zinzendorfgasse, lies the most student-run street in the city: Geek’s Café (no. 25), Propeller (no. 17), Beanery Coffee (no. 20), Martin Auer (no. 29), Posaune (no. 34), Hao Chi (no. 32), plus Sakana in the Halbärthgasse and Harrach in the Harrachgasse.
Prices are low, opening hours are long, and in the university holidays half of it is shut. That is the one thing to know about this quarter: it lives off term time. The winter semester at the Universität Graz begins on 1 October 2026 — before that it is noticeably quieter here.
Sunday, and other questions of timing
Opening hours are recorded in OpenStreetMap for well over four hundred of the places in the extract. For at least sixty of them it says explicitly that they are closed on Sundays — the real figure is considerably higher, because many entries simply do not list Sunday at all. Next to nothing in our extract is tagged `24/7`.
For planning that means:
- Sunday evening is the hardest time in Graz. The old town and the going-out streets in Lend carry it, the residential quarters in Jakomini and Gries much less so. If you arrive on a Sunday and stay on the edge of town, do not assume you will still find something at eight in the evening.
- Monday is the second closing day. Several of the more interesting kitchens shut on Mondays — that is in the data and it is typical of owner-run places.
- In Geidorf the semester counts. The university quarter lives off term time; in the holidays part of the Zinzendorfgasse is closed.
And the general caveat: opening hours in OpenStreetMap are volunteer work and regularly out of date. They are good for the question “is this an area where things are open in the evening” — not for the question “is this particular place open today”.
Where to stay for it
If you pick your hotel by dinner — and that is not a bad idea, because in the evening you are tired and reluctant to travel:
- Lend, for the best choice: Gasthof Lend-Platzl stands on the Lendplatz itself, Hotel Mariahilf on the Mariahilferstraße. By our data both have one of the highest densities of places within a ten-minute radius in the whole selection.
- Old town, for wine taverns and short distances: Aiola Living in the Landhausgasse, in the middle of the densest cluster.
- Jakomini, for the international kitchens: Augarten Art Hotel in the Schönaugasse, with the Augarten in front of the door.
The comparison of all the districts is under Where to stay in Graz, the individual houses under Lend & Gries, Innere Stadt and Jakomini & Geidorf.
What this page doesn’t know
We name places because they are in our place data and they show the density of a quarter — not as a recommendation. About quality, price or service that data says nothing. Opening hours are recorded in OpenStreetMap for most of the places in the extract and are still regularly out of date; places close, change their name and change their cooking. And what is missing from OpenStreetMap is missing here as well: the extract is complete enough for a statement about density and too incomplete for a list of the best.
All of those places lie, together with parks, tram stops and sights, on the map with 1,249 places — where you can draw a walking radius around any house and count what is actually nearby.