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One of the best restaurants in the world is just around Hungary’s border
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Since Michelin Guide does not travel around in the countryside of Austria, the Taubenknobel, which was formerly awarded two Michelin start, is now a place in a village near Lake Fertő waiting to be discovered. The luxury cars parking outside the establishment are the only signs suggesting that the restaurant here is among the best in the world.
The buildings and interior are rustic, the furniture is made out of beautiful wood and the walls are decorated by the works of Arnulf Rainer. One of the interesting things is that there is no a la carte, rather a simple menu that contains what the chef has to offer at that time. The meal has seven courses for 138 €, but you can order an extra dish for 22 € more, another optional extra for 22 € is sturgeon caviar placed onto the first appetizer and the biggest extra you can get is a 98 € one. This includes wines specially selected for the dishes of the meal. Although it is a luxurious place they do not despise you if you go there in flip-flops as the founder is a creative artist – wrote Forbes.hu.
Walter Eselböck and his wife, Eveline, who has Hungarian roots were teenagers when they got married.
Because they were not skilled in many things they saved money as waiters and kitchen personnel in Lake Fertő and after a few seasons they gathered enough to buy a farmhouse in Burgenland, on the main street of Sérc in the 1980s. Around that time they did not even dream about being one of the most innovative restaurants in the whole world.
If you are interested in some of the best restaurants in Budapest, here is our article about CNN’s top list of restaurants in the capital of Hungary.
Because Walter was born into a house where many artists came by, later in his life he liked the company of artist and creative people. The home they furnished themselves soon became the meeting place of such people and the conversations with the painters, musicians, and writers of the era lasted until dawn. They soon realized that it would only be sustainable if they make it into a paid system and open up a bar and a gallery.
The name was an easy choice, Taubenkobel got its name from the dovecote in the yard of the house. Playing a joke with the name, the meal always starts with “dove fodder”. It consists of roasted corn and sunflower seeds.
At first, there were two major obstacles. The first was that their customers were hungry as well and Walter’s expertise proved to be inefficient. The second was that they could not provide accommodation, and in 1984 there were no possibilities to do so in the whole village and it is known that no one detested wine. First things first, they tried to mitigate the first problem and Walter decided to be the best chef in Austria, the first one to get three Michelin stars.
Walter went ahead of the trend of using local ingredients by some 20 years. He used authentic and bio-ingredients, even utilizing the mushrooms, herbs, and spices from the local forested area. The Pannon kitchen, as he calls it was a self-explanatory choice for him. It is somewhat similar to being a fusion kitchen, but when Walter came up with the idea, this term was not even formulated yet and the pinnacle of gastronomy was very much different in the 80s than it is today. According to Schluck magazine, “Walter was the first and Noma only came after”.
The couple was quite successful in keeping to their determination as Walter became the chef of the year in Austria within less than 10 years and later he even became the chef of the decade as well. While Walter trained to be the best chef, his wife was not idle either. She finished her studies at the wine academy of Rust and she became the first woman sommelier of Austria.
