Please note: This article was first published on The Vegan Tourist and last updated December 3, 2019.
Updated December 3, 2019: Please note that this blog entry is outdated. I have written an new review, which you can find here.
Original blog post from 2012:
In Vienna, we take our ice cream seriously. The city is full of ice cream parlours, many of which produce their products fresh on the premises. I’ve never tasted better ice cream than the kind that’s produced right here in my home town – and that includes ice cream I’ve eaten all over Italy as well as all the premium US brands.
When I decided to become a vegan, my choices became severely limited. Even though most ice cream parlours produce one or two vegan flavours, they don’t label them as such, and if you inquire about vegan flavours, most salespeople are overwhelmed with the request for detailed information. Does the ice cream contain milk or milk powder? Does it contain cream? Yoghurt? And what about eggs? Are you sure it’s really vegan? Their responses usually don’t inspire confidence, and as a result I’d just about given up eating ice cream altogether.
Then, in the spring of 2011, Eis-Greissler opened its first store on Rotenturmstrasse, a five-minute walk from Stephansdom, right at the heart of the city.
“Greissler” is the German term for a very small grocery store, and Eis-Greissler is exactly that: a tiny store, with an old–fashioned décor, reminiscent of days gone by. It’s lovely.
Eis-Greissler is owned by a couple of organic farmers, Andrea and Georg Blochberger, whose thirty-five cows produce the milk for the yoghurts, cream, and ice cream they manufacture in a small dairy adjacent to their farm.
Their milk products are sold to kindergartens, schools, hotels, and restaurants in Lower Austria, where their farm is located, as well as to other Austrian businesses. Last year, they decided to open their first ice cream parlour in Vienna.
Eis-Greissler isn’t a vegan business, but it’s the only ice cream parlour in Vienna that offers a large variety of vegan flavours, all of which are also clearly labelled as such. That, and the fact that all their milk products are organic, is why I am such a big fan. (Many other ice cream parlours use milk products and eggs from factory farms.)
At a recent visit, eight of the eighteen flavours on sale that day were vegan. I was able to choose between strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, mango, pear, apricot, vanilla, and truffle ice cream. I decided on strawberry, pear, and truffle ice cream, and it was delicious.
So if you find yourself anywhere in the first district of Vienna, ignore all the other ice cream parlours and head on over to Rotenturmstrasse – their vegan ice cream is well worth a detour.
Please note: as Eis-Greissler is such a small store, there’s no in-store seating and there are no bathroom facilities.
Address: Rotenturmstraße 14, 1010 Vienna
Opening hours: daily, from 10:30 AM to 11:00 PM
Website: http://www.eis-greissler.at