Second visit to St. Hubertus, the mountain food place. This time we chose the classics menu as my fellow diners would not want to have the long version but also because the menu has not changed much in the last two years since my last visit.
However, I am happy that we did, these classics are called classics not because they are long standing dishes of Chef Niederkofler, but because they withstood the times. They are interesting, full of flavour and all very good.
He starts you playful with revealing the sourdough for the bread on the table and continues with some nibbles. Mountain tacos with lamb ham, fantastic! A one bite tartlet with parmesan and onion chutney - nice play of sweet and savoury, soft and crunchy. A toasted piece of bread, with a paste on it which tasted like tomato, you get prompted to think Bruschetta, but it turns out to be plum. They treated the plums to get the same acidity like an tomato and then treated the result like you would treat a tomato, an intelligent dish and a nod towards the fact that in the mountains there are no tomatoes.
Once we get launched in the more serious dishes, we have the classic white fish tartare with dill oil, cream sauce, another layered dish and great texture. For me the outstanding dish was the Orzotto, a risotto style dish made out of barley with chicory coffee powder on top of it. One can see such a dish being made shortly after the second world war due to lack of ingredients, but here it gets elevated to heights which is hard to imagine.
As a dessert one gets Buchteln, sweet rolls made of yeast dough, airy, not too sweet, the best I had ever had. One needs to know that in Austria where I grew up, lunches with sweet food like Buchteln or fruit dumplings are coming from and one therefore eats them frequently.
The FOH is super friendly, very professional and efficient. It was a great pleasure to meet an old acquaintance of mine, Anna the sommelier who I had many times at The Ledbury in London. And she totally lived up to the challenges @Skurgan and I like to play: "Bring us the best but also the cheapest wine from the region. This is a three star restaurant, therefore there cannot be any bad wines on the list."