Neither Cuisine Minceur, involving intricate, low-cal recipes with complicated sauces, or its successor, California cuisine, emphasizing simpler dishes, ever attracted much of a Viennese following. The city’s restaurant menus still display tried and true Austrian dishes influenced by the country’s Bohemian, Hungarian, German and Italian neighbors.

Vienna restaurants don’t get more traditional than longtime tourist favorite, the 73-year-old Drei Husaren (Weihburggasse 4). The question is, can its elegant Viennese ambiance compensate for prices higher than justified by the food? In addition, there is a per person cover charge.

An authentic Beisl (small Vienna tavern serving traditional cuisine) we’ve being going to for about 25 years is Smutny (Elisabethstrasse 8), just outside the Ring, not far from the Staatsoper and Musikverein. The great Czech beer, Budvar (€3.2), is served vom fass and you’ll pay €9 to 13 for hearty dishes such as Tafelspitz and Wienerschnitzel.

At the more upscale Zum Schwarzen Kameel (Bognergasse 5), a sort of combination luxury restaurant and stand-up delicatessen, the old recipes have a lighter touch. Noteworthy are the several fish entrees including feathery light perch filets.

Cozy (11 tables) Zum Kuckuck (Himmelpfortgasse 15), another old favorite of both Gemütlichkeit staff and readers, offers a cuisine more polished than the usual stick-to-the-ribs Austrian fare. Imaginative, fixed-price, four-course dinner menus start at €36 but a two-course lunch menu, featuring pan fried venison filets, in juniper sauce is only €14.

Restaurant Boheme (Spittelberggasse 19), a wine tavern in the romantic Spittelberg quarter near the Hotel Altstadt, offers moderate prices and consistently good food accompanied by classical background music.

In the same neighborhood, but a bit less refined, is Spatzennest (St. Ulrichsplatz 1), where a fresh vegetable salad, Zwiebelrostbraten (steak topped with fried onions) and a glass of red wine is less than $25.

Take the U1 to Meixner’s Gastwirtschaft (Buchengasse 64), an Otto Wiesenthal favorite in the 10th district. He calls it “Viennese cuisine at its best.”

Michelin awards its red, Bib Gourmand symbol (good food at moderate prices) to several Vienna restaurants: Vestibühl (Dr. Karl-Lueger-Ring 2) in the Burgtheater, Fadinger (Wipplingerstrasse 29), Artner (Floragasse 6), Tempel (Praterstrasse 56), Hedrich (Stubenring 2), Gaumenspiel (Zieglergasse 54), and the aforementioned Zum Schwarzen Kameel and Meixner’s Gastwirtschaft.

The only restaurant with Gypsy music that’s not strictly for tourists is the inexpensive Balkan entry, Beograd (Mühlgasse 15), near the Naschmarkt.

Doug Linton, a sometime Gemütlichkeit contributor and Vienna resident, wrote a book about the city’s famed coffee houses (To the Coffee House!, Glattau & Schaar Verlagsges, ISBN 3-9500 828-3-2) and his favorite is Diglas (Wollzeile 10) which has excellent three-course lunch menus for around $15. Two other places with alt Wien style are Café-Restaurant Frauenhuber (Himmelpfortegasse 6) and Café-Restaurant Schwarzenberg (Kärntnerring 17).

You can benefit from our mistake by never setting foot in La Scala (Elisabethstr. 13), near Le Meridian Hotel, where the food is barely edible, some of it possibly from cans.