What can I keep in mind of my first journey to Austria, some 20 years in the past? Tyrolese mountains, jagged and austere; hooves clattering on Salzburg’s cobbled streets; the frothing rush of verdigris waters. And a courgette soup.
Some dishes stick with you for a lifetime. Like this soup – a pistachio-green velouté served within the candle-lit nightfall of a guesthouse terrace. A street journey had taken my Austrian boyfriend and I from his household’s dwelling in Tyrol to the Danube valleys, skirting hilltop castles and evergreen forests, making pit stops alongside the best way for the native tackle meat and carbs.
Every menu featured the identical staples: speck (cured pork), knödel (boiled dumplings), speckknödel, and a myriad beige interpretations of schnitzel and potatoes, dressed with a number of symbolic inexperienced leaves. After every week of this mountain-dweller’s food regimen, the courgette velouté had tasted of salvation – however I’d gone dwelling upset with Austrian delicacies.
So it was with some trepidation that I landed in Vienna this summer time, unable to withstand an invite to observe a celeb chef round for a few days. Paul Ivić – the highest vegetarian chef you won’t have heard of but – has been making quiet waves together with his ‘root to leaf’ tackle fantastic eating at his restaurant Tian.
4 Gault & Millau toques, one Michelin star and one Michelin inexperienced star in, he appears to be doing one thing proper – so what does it take to remain artistic in a metropolis so enamoured with custom?
All of it, naturally, begins with the produce. Our tour kicks off an hour’s drive from Vienna at Andert Wein, a wine producer a stone’s throw from the Hungarian border. Michael Andert – one half of the brother duo behind the boutique winery – greets us, barefooted, for a tour of their smallholding. It’s a tiny, charmingly ramshackle plot.
Two rows of vines, some fruit bushes, a rooster coop, a small herd of long-horned goats, a vegetable patch and an out of doors oven – sufficient for some 30,000 bottles of low-intervention wine and juice a 12 months, plus the occasional feast (the earlier weekend, the Anderts had hosted a pop-up-dinner by Japanese chef Yoshie Itasaka).
Chef Paul plucks samples for us to style: small yellow plums, wild fennel flowers, jalapeños. Within the shade of a good-looking walnut tree, we’re handled to an alfresco lunch that doesn’t get extra farm-to-table. Michael has slaughtered certainly one of his cockerels and braised it with recent herbs and entire carrots, roots and all.
There’s a backyard salad dressed with home-pickled grapes, plus crushed new potatoes, slices of heat apricot cake introduced over by Michael’s mom, and naturally lashings of wonderful Andert wine. Right here, I sense, is the center of what Paul Ivić tries to distil on a plate: a heat and beneficiant welcome, a connection to nature, and the easy pleasure of gathering round a laden desk.
Our subsequent cease is Stekovics, the place husband and spouse Erich and Priska are the self-appointed custodians of a dwelling library of seeds preserving 1000’s of sorts of heirloom tomatoes, chilis, peppers, garlic and onions.
We observe Priska by way of fields and greenhouses (excursions of the property can be found in season), gratefully accepting a style of the bounty grown there. Might there be a higher snack than heat tomatoes plucked straight from the vine?
That night, at his small plates restaurant Tian Bistro, chef Paul slow-poaches a handful of those sweet-scented jewels for us in olive oil, butter and purple basil – arguably essentially the most joyful dish of the journey.
The next morning, we hit the street once more for a crash course in biointensive rising from IT supervisor turned farmer Robert Brodnjak. His ardour for forgotten greens has paid off: his farm Krautwerk now grows greens to spec for Vienna’s most interesting eating places, from celery roots to shiso leaves and obscure styles of carrots.
Which brings us to the tasting menu at Tian. We’re pampered from the primary amuse-bouche to the final chew of chocolate truffle. Award-winning sommelier André Drechsel pairs every course with a playful circulate of recent juices, kombuchas and pure wines.
I’m reminded of that picnic desk, below the walnut tree, of the care and devotion with which every producer confirmed us the goodness of their soils and the deep roots of their observe. An early course of iced cucumber, marigold and makrut lime, I inform chef Paul, looks like slipping into a washing pond, the primary shock of chilly slowly giving strategy to silky, slippery depths.
My recommendation? Dive proper in – there’s not a speckknödel in sight.
THREE MORE FOR THE ROAD
There could also be champagne on the menu and chilly brew behind the counter at Balthasar, however for an actual pick-me-up order the affogato: comfortable serve swirled in a a sublime, tall-stemmed coupe, with a shot of robust, aromatic espresso poured rigorously round it.
Sisters Susanna and Cecilia whip up a imply ice cream at Veganista. No prizes for guessing their gelateria’s USP, which hasn’t dented the recognition of their seasonal scoops. You’ll discover no ready-made mixes or synthetic flavours right here – every little thing is made on website.
When you’ve discovered your bearings within the maze of staircases, corridors and mezzanines, Altstadt Vienna is a hoot. There’s jazzy artwork on the partitions, a rooftop honesty bar and terrace, and a free 4pm buffet of home-made desserts and reversion sweets.
Want a pick-me-up? Learn our information to the best Vienna coffee houses
French-Cambodian Madévi Dailly is a contract author and editor whose work has appeared in The Guardian, The Unbiased, Excessive Life, Monocle and Lonely Planet, amongst others. Meals editor for us right here at Smith and former digital editor for Eurostar, she lives in London and visits her hometown of Paris each time the pastry cravings get too robust.
