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Food drink&

With fresh, tasty food and intriguing menus and venues, eating out in and around Salzburg is a pretty and rewarding experience. The region is renowned for the remarkable density of award-winning restaurants – there is a cluster of worldclass chefs in the area, producing some of the most exciting contemporary food

Two of the very best

hotel hubertus, Filzmoos & hotel obauer, Werfen

Johanna Maier has been described as the best female chef in the world. Hard to believe that she found her way into the kitchen almost by chance but then seized the opportunity so strongly that her talents were quickly acknowledged. Today she and her husband, Dietmar, and their three sons attract visitors and foodies from around the world to their gourmet restaurant and family hotel Hubertus in the ski village of Filzmoos half an hour from Salzburg.

As well as having been awarded two coveted Michelin stars, Maier, who has celebrity status in Austria and is famous for her feminine version of ‘chef’s whites’ (a white dirndl) is also currently the only Gault Millau four-toque woman chef in the world, with the four toques or chef’s hat symbols being the French guide’s highest honour. She’s also a Relais and Chateaux Grand Chef.

Her lauded dishes espouse elements of French, Asian and Austrian cuisine, but for the Radstadt-born chef, taste is all, and she is famed for her unique flavours and light touch. Fresh fish, in particular trout, has become one of her key ingredients – the hotel has two fish ponds and 24 miles of streams in the vicinity.

She remembers celebrating their first successful season with her husband at another of Austria’s top restaurants, Restaurant Obauer in neighbouring Werfen, a meal that was a formative experience. The brothers Karl and Rudi Obauer (pictured below with Johanna) concentrate on using seasonal produce from regional vendors with influences from around the globe and since opening their restaurant in 1979 have won numerous awards, including currently two Michelin stars and four toques. Considered by some to have the top restaurant in Austria, and still trend-setters, Maier remembers of her celebratory meal: ‘It awakened my desire to offer fine cuisine of a high standard.’ ■ hotel hubertus, am Dorfplatz 1, a-5532 Filzmoos,

+43 (0) 6453 8204, www.hotelhubertus.at, restaurant closed Mondays and Tuesdays, closed annually during april and november

■ restaurant-hotel obauer, a-5450 Werfen, Markt 46

+43 (0) 6468 5212-0, www.obauer.com

Luxury lakeside hideaway resort

schloss Fuschl restaurant, lake Fuschl

The Fuschlsee area is well known for its crystal-clear lakes, and Lake Fuschl itself is an astonishing, almost unreal turquoise colour. And the unique five-star castle, hotel, resort and spa on a peninsula at its shores has gained a reputation for its exquisite fish dishes – yes, the fish come direct and fresh from the lake’s rich stocks. In this super-kitchen, specially designed by chef de cuisine Thomas Walkensteiner in a shiny colour scheme to match the Austrian flag (red and white), there is a large tank and a fishing net, and staff help themselves as required.

Everything at this fairytale environment has to be perfect, from the pink polyanthus roses in the cosseted gardens, to the bespoke shoes in the gorgeous shop, to coloured underfloor lighting in an event area, set to match whatever scheme a particular special occasion requires.

Thomas, (pictured, right, at his fish tank) who is also kitchen director and responsible for the cooking at the adjacent sister hotel Sheraton Jagdhof Fuschl, worked for several gourmet restaurants earlier in his career, including renowned venues in Vienna and Munich and also Osaka and Bangkok. It was these latter experiences that inspired and continue to inspire his cooking, he says.

Asian cuisine, with its herbs and its wide variety of flavours, ‘is a philosophy’, says Thomas, originally from western Austria, whose third and latest cookery book focuses on just those aspects. ‘For me, cooking is [about] eating well. It’s about lifestyle, wellness, more of an holistic approach. Asian cuisine for me is the right and correct handling of food.’ The regional/local/seasonal mantra is one he practises, and nothing could be more fresh than the trout, renke (from the salmon family) and Arctic char from Lake Fuschl. He works closely with Gerhard Langmaier, Salzburg fishmaster and responsible for all the lakes in the SalzburgerLand region, who is out every day in the boats.

Guests can also go out for trips on the lake, with gourmet picnics on board.

The Schloss Restaurant includes Austrian specialties, Austrian wines from the castle’s wine cellar and something no other restaurant can rival, views from the legendary lake terrace. There’s even a tea ‘sommelier’. For less stellar food, rather than the more heady experience of the award-winning main restaurant (Thomas won a prestigious Gault Millau Shooting Star of the Year award in 2003), head for the nearby Sheraton Jagdhof Fuschlsee, also with a terrace, and a choice of Austrian or Italian-influenced menus.

The hotel, linked with politicians and the rich and famous through the ages, (the castle’s tower was built in 1461), has provided discreet luxury for the likes of Prince Charles, Gene Hackman, Roger Moore, Billy Wilder, Clark Gable and Richard Nixon. It underwent a massive renovation programme from the beginning of this millennium. The rooms, decorated lavishly in a variety of styles according to various epochs, are also hung with museum-quality paintings from the company’s collection of old masters, and guests can even hire from the huge collection of around 200 classic cars and take themselves for a spin. Salzburg is only 15km away, and you can picnic in style in a vintage Rolls-Royce. ■ Schloss Fuschl resort and Spa,

+43 (0) 6229 22530 www.schlossfuschlsalzburg.com

es L tofi ho p LL Luigi Captuto/Red Bu

High-flying food

Hangar-7, Salzburg

Taking airporT food to a whole new level is Hangar-7 at Salzburg Airport. It’s right across from the boarding gate area on the other side of the main airport runway, but a destination in itself that you’ll be reluctant to leave. A vast glass oval whose construction is a marvel in itself, with no visible means of support, it is a shrine to the aeronautical collection of Red Bull founder Dietrich ‘Didi’ Mateschitz, with planes, racing cars and other speed paraphernalia on show, and all open to the public.

Also an enormous exhibition space, it houses three eating areas where the food is just as out of the ordinary. Up a long diagonal tube walkway of glass to the apex of the roof is a circular space with seating and tables which serves as a private dining room for VIP clients and can be privately booked. Then there’s a glamorous first-floor restaurant, Ikarus, with kitchens presided over since 2003 by a succession of top visiting chefs. Each month, one of the world’s most distinguished chefs is invited to take charge of the menu to give their interpretation of ‘fusion cuisine with a difference’. The year 2012 sees internationally renowned chefs like Nuno Mendes (Viajante / London), Ryan Clift (Tippling Club / Singapore) Daniel Patterson (COI / San Francisco), Pascal Pardot (L’Astrance / Paris) or Peter Gilmore (Quay / Sydney).

The resident team at Hangar-7, under the patronage of Gault Millau ‘Chef of the Century’ award-winner, Salzburg’s own Eckart Witzigmann, and young hot-shots executive chef Roland Trettl and chef de cuisine Martin Klein, get to capitalize on all that expertise in the month of August each year. The influences and knowledge they’ve absorbed with the visiting supremos, who this year brought with them 21 Michelin stars, are passed on to diners in a culinary adventure around the world.

Trettl, who like his staff eschews chef’s whites for all-black outfits topped with Hangar-7 black baseball caps, says his philosophy is that the only tradition by which he is bound is the quality of his creations. He also oversees a second restaurant, the Mayday bar, not at gourmet level but with beautiful and unusual food combinations with a fun set menu, reasonably priced, where you can choose for example ‘Brain Food’ or ‘Beauty Food’ depending upon the ingredients!

Popular with locals and visitors in the know, especially before a flight, is the chic but casual eaterie on the ground floor, with views into the airy, light-filled hangar. The Carpe Diem name no doubt reflects the ‘seize the day’ philosophy of the marketingsupremo founder, who still owns around half of the Red Bull company, the name familiar also for sponsoring extreme sports such as motor racing. Don’t even think about eating and drinking during your flight. For breakfast, for example, you should opt for something like a tenderly poached egg atop a gorgeous confection of warm cottage cheese seasoned with herbs; a pretty assortment of breads; or a continental selection which mixes fruit and other items, all stunningly presented on a pretty tiered china cake stand. To drink, there are the new Carpe Diem natural fruit drinks, such as quince, at the other end of the Red Bull energy drink spectrum, in pretty dark-glass bottles. And the extensive drinks menu also includes a selection of specialist teas, served in Japanese–inspired heavy metal teapots on trays, accompanied by something of a sweet and biscuity ‘amuse-bouche’ fresh from the oven.

This airport experience definitely reaches new heights. ■ www.hangar-7.com

A rustic surprise

hoagascht in Flachau

From the outside, in the main street at the busy ski resort of Flachau, this is what it seems – a typical Austrian restaurant with very nice, ‘high-end’ traditional cuisine. But once inside it gradually dawns that we are not at all in a conventional restaurant.

For a start, although the surroundings might at first seem rustic, the drinks section in the centre is very sophisticated and hi-tech. In fact, the building started life as a cowshed 248 years ago. Chef and owner Hermann Oberreiter (see above right) found it and spent months renovating and extensively developing the interior into a supremely modern restaurant business. It’s pretty without being kitsch, though there are little touches that stop you in your tracks – like a framed Michael Jackson autograph, personally addressed to the charismatic owner.

Tables and chairs are rustic, Hansel and Gretel style, with hearts carved into the wood, and the décor is cream and gold, with long, comfortable cushions on the wooden benches, embroidered with the restaurant’s signature deer motif. Add fresh flowers, candles, alcoves for privacy if required, and laid-back music mixed especially for Hermann by a friend, the latter really setting a relaxed mood and pace for the place.

The menu is a mix of traditional Austrian home cooking, Sunday lunch food if you will, with a foodie twist and sometimes with more a proper bow than a nod to Asian cuisine, such as cabbage curry served in a stone pot together with Nishiki rice and prawns. Hermann, 37, originally from the nearby village of Reitsdorf and with a significant cooking pedigree, spent two years honing his skills at a serious level in South Korea, (Hermann cooked for Michael Jackson for a few days while he stayed here, special sushi alongside the usual Kentucky Fried, and MJ left the autographed note on his bedside table). At 22 he was the youngest chef in Austria to receive a coveted 16 points in the Gault Millau rankings.

Dumplings here are delicious and come in various guises, such as potato dumplings made with starch flour or cornmeal, or the cheese dumplings in soup which typically begins a meal in the SalzburgerLand area. A great foil is the white cabbage mixed with little pieces of smoked ham and dressed with oil and vinegar. Why not try the spring rolls with sour cream, gherkins and orange chilli dip or carpaccio of Highland beef marinated with rucola and parmesan chips? Most requested dishes are chanterelles ravioli, Pongauer tomato fish soup and the stunning puddings, such as chocolate Toblerone and nougat.

Hermann is hot on his ingredients being organic, regional, top quality and absolutely fresh, so the fish comes from the restaurant’s own ponds a few kilometres away, and the beef comes from his ‘own’ farmer, via his ‘own’ butcher…. And all the carefully chosen wines are Austrian.

In recent years, restaurant cooking in Austria, as elsewhere, has undergone various foodie trends and influences, including fusion and Italian-style, but from the late Nineties it has been fashionable for chefs to create and diners to enjoy dishes using traditional Austrian methods and home-grown ingredients. The Schnitzel, for example, made a comeback, and can be found created with chicken, pork and beef, as well as the traditional Viennese breadcrumbed veal dish.

Hermann is keen on unusual, more experimental combinations. Asked if he has a particular favourite among London restaurants, he immediately mentions the Fat Duck at Bray in Berkshire. Undoubtedly he is cut from a similar culinary cloth as the UK’s Heston Blumenthal (and with similar haircut and zeal for ploughing a likewise individual furrow). His vision, he says, after two decades of cooking at top levels, is that ‘the most important thing is the ingredients, that they should be regional and from here and authentic.’ Except for those from the Far East, of course, which would be impossible to source locally. His aim, he says when pressed, is to have everything perfect – ‘the food, kitchen, service, bar….’ And his future plans? ‘I have to keep this quality.’

For diners who fume at not being allowed to smoke indoors any more, there’s a bonus in a special smoking menu here with suggestions such as a cigarillo and a coffee and other ‘smokes’ paired with digestifs such as a malt whisky or selection from the extensive Schnapps menu, capturing perfectly the essence of fruits such as blackberry in a single sharp mouthful.

■ In ski season there’s a free bus

shuttle from the city of Salzburg to Flachau in the mornings and returning after lifts close in the evening, check for times. open 9am – 2pm and 5.30 – 11pm. hoagascht, Flachau 14, Flachau. +43 (0) 6457 32490 www.hoagascht.at

Prost! A centuries old delight

Bräustübl Tavern at Mülln

THERE’S ONLY one Austrian word you need to know at the Augustiner brewery, one of Salzburg’s funkiest meeting places yet most traditional drinking and eating houses: ‘Prost!’ as you clunk old-fashioned drinking pitchers as jovial monks may have done over the centuries.

Take a walk across the pretty Salzach river from Mirabell Palace and park, and head for the Mülln area of the city. Here, on a warm summer’s evening, the tables under the huge horse-chestnut trees in the garden are packed with hundreds of early- evening drinkers and diners in what must be the archetypal beer garden. There is seating for 1,600 outside (the largest beer garden in Austria), 1,400 in the restaurant and beer hall indoors. The Bräustübl beer, which has been brewed in this former monastery for centuries and is still produced according to traditional methods, is hugely popular.

The whole experience, from arrival at the vast building, through the steps you take to actually get your food and drink and to fi nally sit down, is pretty much the same as it has been for hundreds of years.

If you’re a fi rst-timer, it’s a lot water, hops and yeast, and is stored in traditional wooden barrels. Most popular are Märzen beer (malt), ‘Lenten beer’ (from Ash Wednesday to Easter) and ‘Christmas Bock beer’ (from November to December) – both typical kinds of stout.

At the souvenir shop (also online) visitors can buy one of the drinking pitchers in various sizes to take home, as well as bottled beer with its distinctive vintage labels and great little antique-looking gizmos for just a few pounds, which attach to your opened but unfi nished beer bottle to keep it fresh.

Sunny afternoons and early evenings are the best times to go, as well as for special events such as live music evenings and for live football broadcasts.

There’s parking for 400 cars and coaches, but you’re probably better served by bus, with half a dozen routes going past the door. Regulars can get a special loyalty deal which includes a taxi voucher! There’s a small play area for children in the beer garden.

easier when you know the system.

From the silent cobbled sloping street outside you’ll suddenly see the swinging sign up high and a door takes you through into a wide corridor. There is a closed door at the end on the left, with no sounds coming from it and no sign. But turn the handle and push and you’re in a glorious, huge stairway with old statues and a painted fresco of the brewery. Down the stone stairs, turn left – and the place is buzzing, the high ceilings and thick walls adding echoes and a distinct chill. Along one wall is the delicatessen arcade with large, ornate serving hatches, each one selling a diff erent kind of food, with many regional specialities: breads and cakes, cheeses, fi sh, hot food with noodles, sauerkraut, dumplings, multicoloured salads; hot sausages, ribs and much more.

You should also have picked up a tray along the way and everything is served either on paper plates or in paper bags. Portions are not small, but the prices are. If you’re not into beer, you can also get a coff ee, tea or a soft drink here, and then head to one of the timeless-looking refectory dining rooms with their dark wooden tables and chairs and stained-glass windows.

You can also take your own food along, but the only beer to drink here is the malty house brew.

To get your beer, fi rst go to one of the beer counters (there is one inside one outside, under the main stairway to the beer garden). You take a stoneware mug from the shelf and clean it with water from the fountain’s copper spout, then queue at the nearby cashier’s and pay for a half or a litre (a half litre costs €2.80). You’ll get a receipt, which you take to the counter, and your beer is drawn fresh from wooden barrels.

The brewery was founded by Augustinian monks in 1621, later handed over to the Benedictine order of monks when the old order died out, but has always kept the name. The beer is still brewed here according to the Purity Law of 1516, without preservatives and using only malt, ■ The Bräustübl Tavern is open

every day – Monday to Friday, 3pm to 11pm, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays from 2.30pm to 11pm sharp. Augustiner Bräu Kloster Mülln Lindhofstrasse 7, 5020 Salzburg +43 (0) 662 431246 email: info@augustinerbier.at www.augustinerbier.at

Make a note!

Stiegl is Austria’s leading privately owned brewery, located in Salzburg. At its connected Stiegl-Brauwelt (‘World of Brewing’) guests can enter Europe’s largest beer experience with museum, beer tasting, restaurants and more.

Bräuhausstrasse 9, 5020 Salzburg,

www.stiegl.at +43 (0) 662 8387 1492

(C) STIEGL