Vienna: 14 May 2019

Steirereck restaurant, as seen from the park.
It is hard to believe that within are still the bones of a 19th century dairy.

Yes, we have been to concerts in Vienna. But we have also eaten.

This weekend, in the Stadtpark, there was a bio (organic) food fair. About fifty, maybe more, vendors set up temporary huts for a three-day stay. There was strudel.  There were wines and nuts and cheeses and breads and honeys and beer and children and dogs in leashes and dogs in buns and a golden statue of the waltz king, Johann Strauss and the ducks splashed in the lake and the trees were in flower with white and purple blooms and bulbs were sprouting tulips and there were green lawns lain with blankets and cotton chaises for the public to enjoy. The expected rain did not come. The sky was clear and the sunshine bright.

We walked through all that. We did not nibble. We were walking to a restaurant in the park. It occupies a former cow stable and dairy. But you would hardly know that as it’s east and west faces are modern, one side more, way more, than the other.  In our side, the restaurant designer envisioned fingers extended from a hand. In this case, several slender pavilions emanating from a central hub. Each pavilion holds about five tables. Each table has it’s own floor to ceiling window. On an optimal day the glass rectangle rises straight up into the sky. The table is exposed to fresh air. A long transparent scrim of fabric wafts in the open air breeze. On a day when all the windows are raised, the building appears, as seen from the park, to be sheets of shiny glass and stainless steel, at varying heights, reflecting the leaves of the trees and the sunlight.

Inside our slender pavilion, on our table was a hand woven linen table cloth. Earlier in the day, when I passed by, doing reconnaissance, I saw a man with a hot iron going table to table searching for wrinkles. Our table linens were perfect. That is part of what gets them two Michelin stars. And what gets them included in this years top 50 restaurants in the world.

I will say, the food was tasty. Every bite had an interesting aspect of flavor texture and of course presentation. I imagine anyone who has eaten in Steirereck when asked what stood out, will describe the bread trolley and the beeswax. For any fan of bread, the trolley is heavenly. Fifty breads, just out of the oven, still warm, with perfect egg-shell fragile crust. There were conventional loaves and things like chorizo-chile or honey-lavender. The bread-sommelier was an excellent slicer. A bag beneath his perforated cutting board captured the variety of crumbs. The beeswax refers to their fish preparation. Set one two-inch by four-inch rectangle of arctic char in the center of a silicon mold. Next, pour a small pitcher of molten beeswax over the fish. When it hardens, remove the silicon mold and the beeswax. The fish by then has been cooked by the hot wax. It is then taken to the kitchen to make ready for it’s table presentation.

Whether we had venison, fish or celeriac they were all accessorized with something crispy, something creamy, an interesting vegetable. The unifying concept was the quality of the ingredients. For instance, and this is not particularly food related, after lunch we saw people on the roof. They were laying out flat vacuum packed bags to lay in the sun. Later, I read in the Steirereck Magazine, a rather thick interesting compilation, that they gather in the forest a particular herb. They pack the herb with syrup, lay it in the sun, wait a month, then filter the resulting syrup into bottles with droppers. It is good for soothing coughs. And it is good for adding a sparkle of flavor to a plate. That is the appeal of Steirereck. There are many inventive, creative, hand-wrought elements.

Our most frequent food hangout is the Café Imperial, the corner café of our hotel. People in the know on Vienna, will suggest Hotel Sacher or Demel’s for a pastry café experience. But our Café Imperial is as old and venerable as the others. The others, in my view, have been somewhat ruined by the internet. Yelp and Trip Advisor have sent tourists, to the classic places, in numbers greater than they can accomodate. What used to be special, intimate and classic is now a mob scene. The lines are long and slow. The clientele is mostly touristic. So are you really in a Viennese place if the patrons are not Viennese?

Our Imperial has vey good edibles, sweet and savory. Plus where else will you bump into Cecilia Bartoli. Or Valery Gergiev. Or Frank Peter Zimmermann. What? You do not know Frank? He is another of my favorite violin soloists. I have watched/listened to him for hours on Youtube.

Tonight, we heard him play with his string trio. The played in a smaller hall than the Musikverein. And one, perhaps, more elegant. Not so gold and flashy. Understated elegance. Earlier today, we saw Frank and his two trio colleagues on the street with their cases. Online, you learn they each play on an instrument by Antonio Stradivari.  I think they should not advertise that while they walk down the Ringstrasse in Vienna. That is a fifteen million dollar heist waiting to happen! In any event, they passed us in the Imperial. And in their concert, they sounded like a million bucks.

Wes and Marlow
Vienna
14 May 2019