TASTE
January 31, 2003
Austrian Restaurants Serve Up
Lighter Fare of Classic Dishes
By MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL VIENNA

Think of Austrian food and you're bound to awaken memories of potbellied waiters in lederhosen serving plates heaped with meat and softball-size dumplings. Well, hold the accordion music and put down the indigestion tablets. A new breed of Austrian chef has rediscovered the country's traditional cuisine and the results are lighter, tastier and more creative. It might be one of the biggest cultural changes to hit Central Europe since the fall of the Hapsburg Empire.

"Things have changed tremendously," says Christoph Wagner, a Viennese restaurant critic and cookbook author. Mr. Wagner says the tide began to turn in the 1980s under the influence of France's nouvelle cuisine. It was only a matter of time before many of the same techniques were used to concoct local dishes. Gradually, local cooks relied less on butter and seasoning, stopped pouring flour and cream into their sauces and began to scrutinize the quality of beef and pork. As a result, says Mr. Wagner, "something like a new Austrian cuisine started to emerge." A combination of factors -- including calorie-conscious diners, competition from Italian and Asian restaurants, and a string of food scares -- is behind this revolution. The food itself is recognizable to anyone familiar with Austrian cuisine and yet it's fresher, less fatty and easier to digest. While there are plenty of quirky combinations, Austria's new cuisine is rooted more in tradition than fusion.

"We serve dishes that everyone knows, but that are in tune with the times," says Christian Domschitz, chef at Moerwald im Ambassador, an upscale eatery in downtown Vienna. To be sure, not everyone would be familiar with Mr. Domschitz's Mock Turtle Soup -- the dish is his invention and contains veal as a substitute for the more difficult-to-acquire turtle. But his Schinkenfleckerl, a noodle and ham casserole, would be at home on any Austrian dinner table. "As a chef, you shouldn't try to disown your roots and forget where you come from," he says.

Considering Austria's rich culinary tradition, there is little reason to forget them, either. With its borders constantly in flux over more than six centuries of Hapsburg rule, Austria developed one of the world's most varied cuisines. At various times, the Austrian Empire included parts of just about every major European region from Flanders to Bohemia, southern Poland, Bosnia-Herzegovina and large swaths of northern Italy. In the process, a kind of medieval fusion kitchen emerged. Traditional German specialties, such as Apfelstrudel, were embellished with ingredients from the south and east, such as cinnamon and raisins. Other dishes such as goulash and Palatschinken (similar to a crepe), were simply added to the repertoire.

By the time the Hapsburg Empire reached its twilight in the early years of the 20th century, Austrian cuisine had achieved world renown. In 1900, an Austrian cookbook by Tyrolean Marie von Rocirtansky was awarded the gold medal at the World's Fair in Paris. Then, a pair of world wars and nearly 50 years as an outpost along the Iron Curtain took their toll. But for many, Austrian cuisine didn't hit its low point until the 1970s, with the dawn of the Hawaiian Schnitzel -- a fried pork cutlet covered with a slice of ham, melted cheese and a chunk of pineapple.

Despite such horrors, Austria's chefs have long enjoyed a stellar reputation. Indeed, peer into the kitchen of a top restaurant in London, New York or Tokyo and there's a good chance you'll find an Austrian laboring behind the stove. The Alpine nation's reliance on tourism has bestowed it a large cadre of cooks, many of whom venture beyond their homeland's borders. The most famous is Wolfgang Puck, owner of several restaurants in the U.S., including Hollywood's Spago. The funny thing is that Mr. Puck and other successful Austrian emigres have made their names not by serving up Austrian specialties but by venturing into French and continental cuisine.

If a recent tour of some of Vienna's most popular and critically acclaimed restaurants is anything to go by, that may soon change -- the menus were full of gourmet Austrian specialties. The eateries themselves ranged from the ritzy to the trendy to the rustic. The list of restaurants specializing in refined Austrian cooking is long, so we've focused on four of the best. They vary in price, size and offerings, but offer a fairly representative look at what the city has to offer. Two are higher-end restaurants -- Julius Meinl am Graben and Moerwald im Ambassador. The other two, Gasthaus Wild and Gasthaus Gruenauer, are typical Viennese Wirtshaeuser, or taverns. We purposely left out the city's best-known restaurants -- Steirereck and Korso, both long considered the city's top addresses -- in favor of newer and lesser-known eateries.

The chefs at the four are as different as their restaurants. Julius Meinl's Christian Petz, Moerwald's Christian Domschitz and Gasthaus Wild's Juergen Wolf are journeymen professionals who grew up in the trade. Martha Gruenauer, who runs the kitchen at Gasthaus Gruenauer, learned to cook while tugging on her mother's apron strings at home.

While the individual chefs' approaches and styles at these restaurants might diverge, they are all grounded in the Austrian tradition and the people running them share many of the same ideals. Above all, they have in common a commitment to fresh ingredients. As a result, a diner can order everything from pumpkin-cream soup to apricot-filled dumplings and be fairly sure a can opener wasn't used during preparation.

"Good ingredients form the basis of every good kitchen, and if they aren't top quality nothing else matters," says Mr. Petz, recently named chef of the year by the Austrian edition of Gault Millau for his work at Julius Meinl.

Fortunately for Mr. Petz and his Austrian colleagues, they don't have to look far to find such quality. Outside of Vienna, Austria's eight provinces, each with a distinct cultural and culinary tradition, remain true to deeply embedded rural traditions. That makes it easier to get fresh venison, and to find the butcher with the best pork filets and the farmer with the tastiest chickens. What's more, there's a wide array of local specialties, such as pumpkinseed oil from the Styria region or Tyrolean cheese, for restaurants to draw on. The scare over mad-cow disease, as well as local revelations about some farmers pumping their livestock with hormones and antibiotics, has accelerated the flight to quality. More and more, restaurants are turning to smaller local suppliers that still do things the old-fashioned way.

"I'm very strict with my suppliers," says Gasthaus Wild's Mr. Wolf. "They know that if they aren't up to snuff, there's a line of others behind them eager for the business." Ironically, the obsession of relying on local suppliers has made exporting the experience of Austrian dining difficult. Some might argue that a pig is a pig and that sauerkraut is sauerkraut. Just don't try and convince Toni Moerwald, owner of Moerwald im Ambassador. For a recent catering job in Frankfurt, "we had to pack everything up and transport it up there," he says.

More daring souls have set up shop permanently in Austria's northern neighbor -- referred to locally as der grosse Bruder, or big brother. Berlin, in particular, is undergoing something of an Austrian food craze. Part of the reason for this boom, both at home and abroad, has been the rediscovery in recent years of Austrian wine. Austria's vineyards were long held in disrepute after authorities in the 1980s discovered a number of winemakers spiking their sweet wines with an antifreeze agent to manipulate the taste.

Austrian wine has lately enjoyed something of a renaissance. Gruener Veltiner, a dry white indigenous to the wine-growing regions of Lower Austria, has fared particularly well in recent competitions. The red varieties, including Zweigelt and Blaufraenkish, from Austria's eastern Burgenland province, also are gaining an international following. "The success of the wine has definitely helped spark interest in Austrian cuisine," says Julius Meinl's Mr. Petz. "A good wine list is essential for any good restaurant."