If you’re in Vienna, you’ve got to try the Sacher-Torte. And if you are going to try the Sacher-Torte in Vienna, then it had better be at the Hotel Sacher, right? (Though now that we’re home, I see we should have also tried a slice from the Demel bakery. Who knew there’d been such an intense legal battle around cake?)

We walked by the Hotel Sacher many times during daytime hours, as it’s across the street from the Vienna State Opera and we were hopping on and off of trams nearby often. There was always a long line out the door, making us realize that if we wanted to eat at Cafe Sacher, we were going to have to do it way off-peak—such as after one of the many evening Mozart and Strauss holiday concerts with which we filled our evenings.

And so, two weeks ago, on New Year’s Eve eve, we took a tram and ended up back at Hotel Sacher around 10:30 on a Sunday night, when as it turned out there was still a line out the door, but at least a much shorter one, so we got a table after half an hour’s wait rather than it taking an hour or two.

Our wait was cold (hey, Vienna was always cold while we were there) so though the Sacher-Torte was what brought us there, I figured I should have a cup of goulash to warm myself up. The goulash was good, second only to what I’d have the following day at Café Landtmann … but that’s not what you’re here for, I know. What you want to know is … how was the Sacher-Torte? (more…)

After Irene I ate at Lima’s famed restaurant Astrid y Gaston, I jokingly speculated I’d have a hard time deciding which I’d rave about more on my return home—our meal there or the wonders of Machu Picchu. Yes, the food was that good.

And our recent meal at Vienna’s Steirereck im Stadtpark—currently the #11 restaurant on a list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants—had me thinking the same way. Would I rave more about our meal there—or about the New Year’s Eve performance of Die Fledermaus which had brought us to Vienna in the first place.?

The fact I’m writing up this account of our Steirereck meal before posting anything about our night at the opera answers that question!

As we walked through the Stadtpark toward Steirereck for our Saturday lunch, I was a little nervous about how we’d be treated, though. That was because, while one Yelp reviewer called their “fantastic 5 hour lunch here – one of the best afternoons I’ve ever experienced,” and most other Yelpers seemed to agree with raves of their own, another reviewer felt so “angry and frustrated” that she was “about to walk out of the door but stopped by my husband” because “if you are cannot speak German, be prepared to be treated as such.”

And since that latter visit took place only a few weeks before our own, I was worried—were we non-German speakers going to be up for the same sort of treatment? (more…)

Yesterday, I shared with you Next restaurant’s menu for The Hunt, which was served for the first time Wednesday night.

Today, Next released a video which gives a more visceral (and I mean that both metaphorically and literally) idea of what the chefs have planned for you should you make it there before the cuisine’s final seating on April 28.

And before anyone clicks … consider this a possible trigger warning for the vegetarians out there … or for anyone who might be bothered by scenes of a guy with a shotgun walking across a snowy landscape.

As for me, the only things triggered were my salivary glands!

BTW—here’s how Next promoted its Kyoto menu, which I was privileged to experience back in November.

Last night, the ever-changing Next restaurant launched its latest cuisine, The Hunt, which will run through April 28, and Monika Cascone was one of the diners lucky enough to snag a table. Today, she shared a mouth-watering series of photos from her meal, including this one of the menu itself.

Yum!

I’ll be heading to Chicago in March to check out the real thing. How about you?

I’m still not sure how we were lucky enough to end up dining at Huth Gastwirtschaft, which was recommended to us as one of the best places in Vienna for traditional Austrian food. And the fact that I don’t speak German means it will forever be a mystery.

The first issue we had to overcome last Friday night was to figure out which Huth was the Huth we wanted. When we got to Schellinggasse, we found two Huths on opposite sides of the street, and we weren’t sure which of the two was the one that had been so highly recommended. So we studied both the menus hanging outside and what we could make out of the diners through the windows, and were able to determine that the Huth on the north side of the street had no tablecloths and served more casual food such as burgers, while the Huth on the south side of the street—the one with Gastwirtschaft in its name—appeared more upscale both in the table settings and what was being served on them.

So we went in and asked whether we could have dinner. Unfortunately, we were told … no. Which is understandable—it was a Friday night between Christmas and New Year’s, so it made sense restaurants would be busy. But it was our first night in Vienna, and we were hungry, so we thought we’d give it a shot.

I then asked whether there were any openings for two later in the evening, because we had no problem coming back. Again, we were told … no.

As we buttoned up our coats and started heading back out to the street, a grey-haired woman seated at the bar said a few sentences—in German—to the server who’d turned us away. Irene and I then stood in front of the restaurant wondering where we should try next, when the server rushed outside and waved us in. “Come, come!”

Puzzled, we went back inside and were given a table. I have no idea what the woman said to get us seated—was she the owner, taking pity on two bedraggled tourists?—and due to the language barrier, we’ll never know. I’m just extremely grateful, and happy that we got a chance to order from this menu, which proved to be second in quality only to Steirereck of the meals we had in Vienna. (more…)

As those of you who’ve read about my visits to Chicago for Next’s Sicily and Kyoto menus know, the restaurant is not only unique—completely reinventing its cuisine three times each year—but also extremely difficult to get into. Thousands more people want to dine there than can. As Eater quoted co-owner Nick Kokonas back in February:

” … the queue reached 1,500 within 10 seconds of turning the sales page on … so in reality you had to be there within 8-10 seconds to have a shot at season tix.”

I very much wanted to be part of Next’s Brigadoon-like magic again next year, and through careful (and sometimes exhausting) attention to the restaurant’s updates on its Facebook page, I managed to become a season ticket holder for 2013.

So here’s what I’m in for: (more…)

As a result of my Saturday night dinner at Range, Bryan Voltaggio’s new restaurant, I was interviewed yesterday by Amy McKeever of Eater about what that first pre-opening preview night was like from the perspective of a customer. Since she’d spent the day and night following the staff around, she needed some input on how it all seemed on the other side of the tables.

Her article was published late this afternoon, and reading it not only brought the meal back to life, it also made me want to get back there again soon so I can order the beef shin!

Irene and I can be seen as a teeny, tiny couple through Range’s long curved glass exterior in one of Amy’s many photos. Can you spot us below (after clicking makes it a little bit bigger, of course)?

See us?

If you look toward the right side of the photo and can find two guys standing side by side, that’s Irene forward of and directly between them, and I’m seated to her right/your left. Our dining companions, who were across from us, are unfortunately obscured by another couple closer to the camera.

Oh, and one last thing—get yourself to Range! But leave some of that beef shin for me, OK?

So three weekends back (yeah, it’s taken me awhile to find the time to get to this), I did one of the craziest, most extravagant things I’ve ever done. I flew to Chicago. For a meal.

Oh, I’ve gone to extremes for high-end dining before, such as my meals at Astrid y Gaston in Lima, Momofuku Shoto in Toronto, and Alinea in Chicago, among others. But all of those meals were a side dish to a pre-existing trip—our visit to Machu Picchu, and my attendance at the World Fantasy and World Science Fiction conventions, respectively.

But this was a trip with the meal as its primary focus. My Sicilian dinner at the ever-changing Next restaurant impressed me so that I wanted to take part in its follow-up offering, Kyoto, and so booked tickets back in September the moment they became available.

Even as I did it, it felt wrong somehow. Fly to another city … for a meal? How decadent!

And yet …

If I had a chance to see Nijinsky dance one more time, or Olivier act again, I’d fly across a continent and feel no shame, but when it comes to food, there’s somehow a twinge of guilt, of … should I really be doing this?

The answer is, when it comes to chefs operating at this level of art on a menu which will be offered for a limited period only to vanish and never return …

Yes. Yes, I should. (more…)

There isn’t much I’d wake up early for on Black Friday. In fact, except for the chance to experience what I experienced last night, I can’t recall ever bothering before.

But Bryan Voltaggio, whose Frederick restaurants Volt, Family Meal, and Lunchbox I’d eaten at and loved before, was opening a new D.C. restaurant, Range. He’d sent out an email to his customers offering a chance to take part in a pre-opening preview dinner, and I wanted in. So there I was, sitting at my computer before 5:00 a.m. on Black Friday, hitting refresh, refresh, refresh until I scored a 5:30 p.m. reservation for four on the first of three preview nights.

After studying Range’s awesome menu, and realizing I wanted to try a far greater variety of dishes than would be possible during a normal dinner, I had a plan—I’d bring along a cooler, order way too much food, practice restraint, and treat the meal as best as I could as a tasting menu, waving away half-eaten dishes and creating tons of leftovers. Which, amazingly, I managed to do, thanks in part to one of the friends who’d joined us, who reminded me now and again of how we’d promised to pace ourselves.

And so, last night at 5:30, Irene and I found ourselves happily seated at a table at Range, looking forward to the wonders chef Bryan Voltaggio’s crew was going to prepare for us.

Our server explained that though the restaurant would be able to deal with 300 customers at full capacity, the first of the preview nights would only serve 130 as the crew got up to speed. We had no problem with being guinea pigs, and because of this found whatever slips in the level of service that occurred (most of which will go unmentioned, because it just wouldn’t be fair) to be endearing rather than troublesome.

And since the food was amazing, everything I hoped it would be, causing quite a few moans that it’s perhaps best one only utters when among friends, I had no problem with being part of helping the crew figure out how to operate in this new environment. In fact, I enjoyed watching the learning process. (more…)

As Carol Ross Joynt wrote in The Washingtonian this morning, “The opening of a new restaurant is like the opening of a Broadway show.” And as those of you who’ve been following my posts on Bryan Voltaggio’s soon-to-open restaurant Range already know, I’m as excited about having nabbed reservations for the first of its pre-opening preview nights as I would be about scoring tickets to the opening night of a new play.

Maybe even more so.

Which is why, with that dinner only five days away, and having already seen the dinner menu, I’ve been wondering—what about dessert? (more…)