Austria is not generally known for culinary innovation. Its best-loved dishes are judged not for creativity, but for perfect adherence to traditional standards. Tafelspitz—boiled beef and root vegetables—and wienerschnitzel have not varied in a very long time. In the whole country there was just one Michelin three starred restaurant until this year when Steirereck was awarded its own. We had lunch there and found it to be miraculously original in Austria’s tradition-bound gastronomic landscape.
Steirereck means the Styrian corner. Styria, the region known as Austria’s green heart, is the home of many of the country’s iconic and ancient traditional dishes. The restaurant began over fifty years ago as a small local place owned by the Reitbauer family. Nothing about its origins, and certainly not its name, led anyone to envision the temple of originality it would become.
In the late 1990’s the family’s son Heinz Reitbauer Jr joined the company with ambitions to transform Steirereck entirely. His efforts were met with skepticism and a fair amount of hostility from the public, fearing the loss of a well-liked homey traditional place. But with the backing of his family, he and his wife Birgit persevered and created something truly special.
The architectural marvel they built to house their vision alerts visitors that they’re about to enter something refined and entirely modern. Visually, it is a shocking surprise among the classical monuments of imperial Vienna.
Floor to ceiling mirrored glass panels bring the lovely green Stadtpark right into the interior. The design breaks up the space into a number of nooks that give diners the feeling of being in small intimate rooms.
Styria is Austria’s principal wine region and the sommelier was impressively knowlegable of the best Austrian wines, of course in addition to those of the rest of Europe as well. He brought us glasses of a Thomas Schwarz bubbly to begin the meal.
Before the amuse bouches, a gentleman whose sole job seemed to be bread sommelier wheeled the bread cart to our table. Did he visit each of Vienna’s best bakeries that morning and select their best? I suspect so. The cart held an astonishing variety of excellent breads.
A succession of amuse bouches foreshadowed the philosophy of the meal to come: complexity and originality not for their own sake, but to give pleasure. Many of the components came from Steirereck’s own farm at Pogusch and a rooftop herb garden.
We chose the seven-course tasting menu. Each course had two dishes to choose from. We usually each picked a different one.
The two first courses were:
- Tomato Diversity with Citrus, Lavendar and Chamomile
Each little grilled tomato was prepared separately and then combined into a lovely composition. Some were marinated with citrus, bergamot and lemon balm, others pickled with lavender, verjus and lemon verbena, and others marinated in mushroom tea. A couple pieces of confit kohlrabi and some red onion pickled in chamomile blossom fond completed the composition. It sat in a soup of jellied tomato water and chamomile blossom oil. Each tomato vied for the title of best tomato I’ve ever tasted.
- Young Carrots with Enoki, Apricot and Marigold
The carrots were glazed with cardamom butter, accompanied by steamed enoki mushrooms braised in carrot mushroom jus. The apricots were preserved in spiced verjus. Yarrow, amaranth and anise hyssop were marinated in ginger and lemongrass. Orange marigold oil brought the vegetable mixture together.
These first courses raised a question. Was it really worthwhile to combine so many ingredients? I’m not entirely sure, but each bite hit with an initial pleasure and then asked us to decipher its component flavors, an enjoyable exercise.
To accompany the first course dishes, we were brought a Nikolaihof Riesling and a Krutzler Gemischter Satz from Austria’s Südburgenland. Rather than blending wines from different vinyards, the gemischter satz approach grows several varieties in a single small plot, harvests and vinifies the grapes together.
Second courses were also entirely plant-based:
- Sunflower with Chanterelles, Tomato and Field Cucumber
The grilled and glazed heart of a sunflower sat atop roasted chanterelles with preserved sunflower stems, dried field cucumber and tomato, in a pool of roasted sunflower and pumpkin seed sauce spiced with coriander, lime and perilla oil, an extract of the seeds of the shiso plant.
- Young Artichokes with Melon Cucumber, Groundcherries and Poppy.
A young artichoke was split lengthwise, one half braised with madeira and thistle oil, the other steamed and glazed with poppy miso. Grilled and marinated melon cucumber and groundcherry slices sat on top of sauteed baby spinach, young coconut, and dried groundcherry, all in a pool of artichoke braising jus, coconut water, lime and poppy seed oil.
The chef makes so much use of groundcherries—they must be in season—that I thought I ought to mention what they are. They’re the fruit of the physalis plant. They grow encased in a paper-like skin and have a pleasantly tart flavor. They’re also known as cape gooseberries or Chinese lanterns.
With the second courses we were served a French Anjou Noir from Domaine Belargus, and a Polz sauvignon blanc from South Styria.
Next came two fish dishes:
- Catfish with String Beans, Plum and Lemon Savory
Crisp grilled catfish and steamed yellow string beans, topped with a scoop of greengage plum jam studded with lemon savory leaves from the Steirereck garden all sat in a foamed string bean butter sauce.
- Eel with pointed cabbage, spruce tips and pepperoncini
Flamed Bodensee eel, glazed with groundcherry and spruce tips sat next to braised and roasted pointed cabbage (spitzkohl) with little radishes in pickled cabbage butter sauce with pepperoncini and smoked eel oil.
The fourth course, which we both chose, was Kid Goat Ribs with Pointed Pepper, Elderberries and Grapefruit. It was accompanied by a Envínate Migan Tinto from the Canary Islands, vibrant, fruity and minerally.
Charcoal grilled kid goat ribs were deboned and glazed with elderberries. They sat on top of a delightful salad of sugar snaps, watermelon, grapefruit, shiso and lemon verbena in a pointed pepper watermelon sauce with lemon verbena oil.
Next came a dish I hesitated to try: Fawn with Summer Squash and Lemon Balm. Did I want to eat Bambi? Well, we think nothing of eating young lambs, I reasoned. The fawn was exceptionally tender and flavorful.
Along with it we were served Pranzegg from Italy’s Bolzano Valley basin, made from old vines of indigenous varieties and biodynamically grown.
The meat was roasted and glazed with red currant, fennel and Szechuan pepper, accompanied by lemon balm marinated spinach and summer squash with preserved salted lemon, sauced with an exquisite fawn velouté.
It was time for the cheese course, and one cart wasn’t sufficient to hold them all. The cheese sommelier brought two carts with a wonderful variety of soft, hard, strong, mild and blue cheeses. We took his recommendations for the best local cheeses. Each was perfectly ripe and excellent.
To go with the cheese, our principal server offered some bread varieties we had thus far neglected to try.
The desserts were in all respects up to the quality of the meal.
- Bitterorange of Schönbrunn Palace with Buttermilk, Comb Honey and Bee Polen.
A granita of a variety of bitterorange once favored by the emperor was topped with honey and pollen from Steirereck’s hives and a delightful bitterorange cream.
Our server brought the honeycombs in a specially designed cart that hummed with the recorded sound of the bees. The sound effect was so convincing that I wondered if they were going to fly out into the room.
Viennese Mangomelon with Fennel Pollen, Passionfruit and Rice.
Mangomelon is a cucurbit that produces orange colored mango-flavored fruit. They were candied, dried, and made into an ice cream.
- Mirabelle Plums with Coconut, Fig Leaf and Groundcherries.
A caramelized puff pastry shell held marinated Mirabelle plums, coconut, pecan praline, groundcherries, rummed raisins and roasted coconut ice cream in a whisky Mirabelle sauce with fig leaf oil.
With the desserts, we were served a 2019 Stadlman Auslese, and Nolandes Gut Warth Honigwein, essentially a mead.
The mignardise were each created in honor of specific pieces by Strauss, whose two hundredth birthday is now being celebrated.
Would we care for some herbal tea to go with the petits fours? Our server brought a cart of growing herbs and snipped some to make a concoction for us.
Not one but two other carts, wheeled in by their expert, brought a great variety of after dinner drinks, one cart full of local schnapps and the other of imported ones.
Espresso came accompanied by a couple of delicate little treats.
Steirereck is in my opinion one of the best restaurants in the world and a strong candidate for the best in Austria. If you visit Vienna, it would be a mistake to miss it.
