The theatrical project aimed to interactively confront the audience with the story of Orlando by Virginia Woolf along various stations within Vienna’s city center. On foot, equipped with a cell phone and headphones, they set out on a path with a total of five stations, accompanied by a charming guide. Approximately 9,000 steps had to be completed in a time of 1.5 hours. At each station, the participants received instructions on which environment they had to point the camera of the cell phone provided in order to activate the app installed on it.
Anisoglu and Pacher’s work is highly transnational, which in this context meant that every single station in Orlando’s life had been designed by other artists. Visuals that could be seen on the small cell phone screens partially merged with the environment for which they were made. Except for one station, the audience listened to the text by Sophie Steinbeck, who had made an abridgment, but also an overwriting of Woolf’s literary model. In doing so, she had used narratives from the individual book chapters on the one hand, but also introduced her own ideas, which at times added another layer to the original text. A small sample:
“the english language is not enough to say what he feels
the german language must be enough for the author to understand what orlando cannot say in english.”
Aras Levni Seyhan delivered the musical bracket that connected all the individual stations.
Claudia Virginia Dimoiu, Simon Goritschnig, Theo Emil Krausz, Nour Shantout, Cosima Büsing, Metamorkid and Lara Sienczak are those artists who had also been invited to this project and delivered contributions.
The story of Orlando is diverse and colorful, dreamlike and at the same time visionary in structure. “The Orlando project” adopts this multicolor. The narrative of the life of a man who transforms into a woman stretches from the Middle Ages up to our own time. Each of the five stations marks a particular time period and bears its own artistic signature. Visual transformations with the help of virtual reality, dance and song interludes recorded on video and reworked on the computer, but also a sculpture garden that you can walk through thanks to a magnificent artificial architecture, create variety and excitement. What begins in the Griechengasse finally ends in the Museumsquartier in front of the Mumok.
The diverse impressions have been charmingly recorded in a leporello, which one receives at the end of the trip. It thus becomes a kind of memory tool along which one can let one’s thoughts wander. Both a brief description of the individual stations and the complete text to be heard are recorded on it. The individual text stations are supplemented with a small photographic excerpt. Large enough to set the memory in motion, small enough to revive one’s own sensations and impressions.
Foto: Glass Circle
Foto: Glass Circle
Foto: Glass Circle
Foto: Glass Circle
Foto: Glass Circle
Foto: Glass Circle
In fact, the artistic team managed to create a sustainable work, which – it is planned – can be discovered in the future with the help of the app alone. This also makes sense, because the overabundance of impressions, coupled with the “real life” that inevitably surrounds you during the performance, do not allow you to take in, hear, see and process everything at the same time.
Individual aesthetically very successful realizations remain in the memory. For example, the artificial landscape of sculptural imprints by Simon Goritschnig in the Schweizerhof of the castle, or the work of Manuel Biedermann, who expanded the transgender performance of Metamorkid with a memorable mapping animation on the wall of the Mumok. The fragmented Persian carpet by Nour Shantout on the facade of the Weltmuseum, which symbolizes Orlando’s stay in Istanbul, also belongs to this group. It should also be noted that it succeeded in plausibly tracing Orlando’s passage through the centuries and ultimately seeing his change of gender in a contemporary light.
Should the project emancipate itself in the next step with a self-operating app, this could develop into a new Viennese attraction that artistically underscores the internationality of this city.
The RSO, under the direction of Gottfried Rabl, performed works by Julius Bürger (1897-1995) for the Austrian premiere on Aug. 18, 2023, in the large broadcasting hall of the ORF RadioKulturhaus. And it came 18 years after the Jewish composer died in New York at the age of 98.
Julius Bürger (Photo: Brian Coats)
That the pieces were able to be heard at all was thanks to the shrewd actions of Ronald S. Pohl, a New York estate attorney. He had been hired by Bürger in 1989 to administer the estate of his wife Rose, who had died shortly before, and to give most of the money to young, Israeli musicians. Not yet knowing that Julius Bürger had a remarkable compositional oeuvre to his credit, Pohl asked him whether, due to his advanced age, he might not want to tackle his estate in time, which turned out to be a stroke of luck. Bürger, born and raised in Vienna, had moved to Berlin as a young man with fellow students and his composition teacher Franz Schreker, and thereafter commuted between London, Paris, Berlin and Vienna. Hitler’s invasion of Austria, however, alarmed him so much that he was able to emigrate to America with his wife in time. There he received American citizenship, worked at the Metropolitan Opera, but also for radio and television stations as a conductor, arranger and commissioned composer, without, however, completely abandoning his own independent compositional activity. Fortunately, Bürger had found a man of action in Pohl. He pulled out all the stops to fulfill his client’s wish to hear his Cello Concerto from 1932, which was first performed in 1952 and had not been heard since 1991, once again. Pohl’s efforts were successful. After performances in the USA, it was also played in Israel – by those musicians who had received scholarships from Rose Bürger. Only after contact was made with Gerold Gruber, director of the Exilarte Center for banned Music at the mdw, and Julius Bürger’s musical estate was brought to Vienna, was it possible to perform a concert of works by him here as well. If Pohl had not met with the composer, one may assume with great certainty that his works, which were collected in a small piece of furniture, would have been disposed of after his death when the apartment was vacated.
Photo: Benjamin Pieber – Herzog Media
Adagio for String Orchestra
The range of works heard in Vienna was rich. The opening was an Adagio for string orchestra, from 1978, which was the only work that had ever been performed in Austria. Flowing gently, it darkened briefly every now and then to expose more dramatic material. The bass violins at some points literally push the strings to moments of tension, but they are always overcome by them. They finally manage to leave behind the wild, the evil, the almost unspeakable, which makes itself audible again and again, and let the work end with a tender euphony. A good choice, as far as the solo part of the cello concerto was concerned, which was played afterwards, had been made with Anna Litvinenko. Impressive were not only the technically difficult passages, mastered with bravura, but especially the intimacy and sensitivity of her solo in the last movement. Technique is only one component of a successful performance, but filling the work with soul makes the difference that Litvinenko was able to show the audience. After a quiet introduction, the winds form and release a pulsating rhythm that the orchestra and cello pick up. Soon the musical action becomes lightly dance-like and develops into a slow flow in which the rhythmic pulsations repeat themselves. Again and again, the little theme, spanning barely 3 measures, emerges across the orchestra. Bürger allows the movement to end only with the winds, supported by the cello. The composer subsequently dedicated the 2nd movement to his mother, who had been killed by the Nazis during the march to Auschwitz. A long, dragging march is intoned at the very beginning, and the cello theme is soon taken up by the oboe. The strings enter elegantly and are carried by the solo instrument, which continues the theme. The dragging ductus gradually transforms into a general shimmering and a transition of the theme into a brightened scenario with harp accompaniment. The soothing, lovely attitude does not last long; soon the sound clouds over again. It experiences a sharp agglomeration and comes up with a long wind sequence with disharmonies that wake up the orchestra and animate it to a wild, gloomy event. Now the cello gets a solo that can be described as illusionless. No trace of that calm, life-affirming passage with harp accompaniment is perceptible anymore; rather, it seems as if the cello has surrendered to the voices of wild violence. Logically, this is followed by an ending in which the orchestra, as at the beginning, reproduces the dragging march. Knowing the fate of Bürger’s mother, one can feel what last moment of life he has captured here musically. In the rapid 3rd movement, the cello responds almost chamber-like to the individual instrumental solos. Again and again, soothing passages, often supported by the strings in unison, counter the lively ones heard earlier, which then pick up speed again with the help of the winds in interplay with the cello. The finale is a cello solo with differentiated, beautiful dynamic colorations, which is followed by a furious final wind and timpani event. The orchestra and soloist rightly received prolonged applause for the performance.
Songs with symphonic accompaniment
The following two songs with symphonic accompaniment were interpreted by Matija Meić. “Legend” after a text by Christian Morgenstern and “Silence of the Night” after Gottfried Keller, allowed musical comparisons with Gustav Mahler. Almost every line, every mood, every description of a state of landscape, soul or action receives its own, musical expression in Bürger. Whether Jesus before his walk into the garden of Gethsemane, completely unexpectedly begins to dance with a young woman and these exuberant steps become audible, whether the surf of a sea addressed in Gottfried Keller, triggers musical surges in the body of sound, music and word support each other most artfully. Meić’s baritone sounded full, warm and very mature, without, however, lacking clear enunciation. He managed with ease to leave the broad symphonic support, a challenge for the singer in these works, as such and rather to contribute vocally like a solo instrument. Both pieces can be characterized as small symphonic poems, but endowed with an epic weight using a large instrumentarium, which makes them extraordinarily exciting. One would like to hear more of them.
Photo: Benjamin Pieber – Herzog Media
“Eastern Symphony”
The concert concluded with the “Eastern Symphony” from 1931.In 3 movements, it opens with a bright theme in the winds that is answered by the strings. Memories of Gershwin, one year older, are evoked, mainly by the strongly accented rhythms, which also change frequently. It is striking, as in the songs before, that Bürger keeps the entire orchestral instrumentarium in almost constant motion. There is hardly a passage in which the musicians are not challenged at the same time, which proves immensely appealing. Cymbals, timpani and drums set the predominant tone, as do the winds, and allow the movement to be experienced as hymn-like and progressive. The 2nd movement begins with the oboe, broadly supported by the orchestra. She is answered by violins and cellos in such a way that a fluidity takes hold of the entire body of sound and a wide, opening landscape can easily be imagined. Again it is the harp that leads to the clarinet, bassoon and strings, as well as the soft wood. It is this instrumental thematic wandering and at the same time the continuation of the same that makes this movement so interesting. The quiet ductus is maintained and the end also sounds accordingly. How could it be otherwise, the final movement begins furiously in the entire orchestra with a wild run. Trumpets and drums set the rapid rhythm, which only calms down with the harp and oboe with the theme sung by the strings above. Now it is the flutes that complete this description of the landscape. As if following a river with small whirlpools of water, the violins, held by the clarinet, spiral on in a lively manner, handing over to the flutes. With a final, massive orchestral entry, the theme, presented once again, ends the beautiful work. The characteristics of Bürger’s music are unambiguous and can be clearly stated. As a composer, he stands aesthetically between the 19th and 20th centuries, from which he borrowed not only the courage to blur sound, but also hitherto unusual rhythms and some new instrumentation. However, his compositional technique is always clearly comprehensible, structures are easily recognizable and – this is what distinguishes Bürger’s symphonic works in particular – he captivates with a musical richness of color par excellance. Austria, especially Vienna, has not made amends with this concerto. There is no such thing. The statement that was made, however, is clear and was more than necessary. Taking care of the estates of expelled composers is an absolute imperative of the hour. The work of the mdw’s Exilarte Center should be brought much more into the public consciousness. A broader awareness of this inglorious chapter in the context of music history can at least help to ensure that the work of the exiles is not consigned to oblivion. We, who are in the fortunate position of being posthumous, can either get actively involved in this event or – and this must not be underestimated – we storm concerts like these and fill the halls to capacity. In doing so, we express our interest and give the music what keeps it alive and what it deserves: our undivided attention.
f.l.t.r Prof. Gerold Gruber, Josipa Bainac Hausknecht, Ronald S. Pohl, Gottfried Rabl (Photo: Ronald Pohl)
An opera with a length of only three-quarters of an hour must have a libretto that skilfully summarises a plot that extends over a period of several weeks. However, Leoš Janáček’s text for his opera ‘Katja Kabanova’ bumps along a little. This may be due to the fact that he himself cut the text down to a condensate based on a drama by the Russian Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrowski (1823 – 1886), which does not really explain the character of many of the figures in it. Ostrowski published his drama under the title “Thunderstorm” in 1859, which is remarkable in that the writer made the hypocrisy of society with regard to adultery and sexual desire, as well as subjugation in a family system, the main themes of his play. Little known to us, he is one of the greats of Russian literature and exerted a strong influence on Leo Tolstoy.
A scope for interpretation or confusion?
The work had its premiere at the Graz Opera on 18.3.2023, for which the team around director Anika Rutkofsky further complicated the already somewhat lurching plot with some directorial ideas, so that in the end the question arises: How much room for interpretation, how many mythological references, how many plot reinterpretations can a play tolerate in order to remain comprehensible? As it turns out, great efforts sometimes do not always lead to the goal.
Which brings the criticism to its core. The director places the action in an ecclesiastical setting, more precisely in the interior of an Orthodox village church. Dikoj, (Wilfried Zelinka), who in Ostrowski and Janáček was still identified as a merchant, becomes the priest of the parish, his nephew Boris, entrusted to his care, his novice. (Arnold Rutkofski) The idea of placing the story in an Orthodox religious context pushes the actual message that every society is hypocritical and seeks scapegoats far away from the Graz audience. Rather, from the red plush chair of the opera, this constellation tempts one to point the finger at a system that “doesn’t happen that way in our country”.
In the very first minutes after the curtain rises, one witnesses a man on a ladder wiping the communist crescent symbol off a church window, which will later be replaced by an image of the Virgin Mary. This clarifies the time horizon in which the drama takes place. We are apparently shortly after the collapse of the USSR. In front of the interior of the church is a blue-tiled wall with an entrance familiar from swimming pools. In the second act, this swimming pool will be extended by a small room that will serve as a lovers’ ladder. The programme booklet explains: “Eleni Konstantatou’s stage space – a swimming pool church – makes the change of system architecturally visible: the St. Peter’s Church of a Protestant parish near Nevsky Prospekt, which was converted into a swimming pool under communism, is the inspiration for this. Today, mass is celebrated again on the covered pool, with the altar stone still reminiscent of the diving board.”
The reduction of the play’s message through the orthodox religious framework
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The mendacity of society that Ostrowski exposed in his drama is downgraded in the Graz opera version to a bigotry in which there is no room for deep religious enlightenment or public confession of one’s fallibility.
Katja Kabanova (Marjukka Tepponen), the young wife of Tikhon (Matthias Koziorowski) is entirely under the curatorship of her despotic mother-in-law, who will not let her son off his motherly leash. When he has to leave the village for a fortnight, his wife suspects disaster. She senses that her hitherto unfulfilled sexuality will be the occasion for a marriage betrayal. And indeed, it only takes a few hours before she gives herself to Boris, Dikoj’s nephew, who until then could only adore her from afar.
In the scene in which the two young people find their way to each other, the stage is filled with all kinds of parallel mating variations. Later, the costumes will show that members of the religious community, who constantly cross themselves in church, obviously only know morality from hearsay.
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As convoluted as the libretto and the staging themselves may appear, they are soothingly contrasted by the music of Leoš Janáček with the conducting of Roland Kluttig. Next to fiery sounds with hard and deep winds that announce disaster, there are highly lyrical passages that allow us to dive deep into various states of mind. Katja Kabanova herself is endowed with several wonderful arias, which Tepponen interprets with increasing brilliance as the performance progresses. Her acting portrayal of this young woman should also be highlighted. Every emotion, every event she reports comes across authentically to the audience. The folk song motifs that the composer has assigned to the character of Kudryash (Mario Lerchenberger) are also wonderful to listen to. The womaniser role he embodies in Graz pushes these heartfelt melodies into the drawer of a cold-blooded, savvy seducer, which means they can only be perceived as sweet at first.
In Janáček’s compositional technique, one can often easily understand the sound of individual words performed and entire movements. For example, the role of Katja’s mother-in-law (Iris Vermillion) has some hard and edgy interjections, in which the sentence “Mankind wants to be deceived” is also uttered. On the other hand, small cascades of melody that sway up and down make those birds audible that Katja sings about when she thinks about how much she would like to be free. However, they appear once more – shortly before the young woman, outcast from society, chooses suicide. The fact that Katja’s husband Tichon also falls victim to social lynch law in the end, because he comes out as homosexual in the Graz version, is also a directorial idea by Anika Rutkofsky.
Marie Sturminger’s costume potpourri reveals a rural society that has none of the chic of Moscow’s upper crust. Only the pompous habit of the Popen and the dazzling white Sunday staffage of Kabanicha, the wicked mother-in-law, convey glamour and thus at the same time her claim to authority.
An excellent ensemble makes for a successful evening
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Musically, the ensemble performs extremely uniformly at a high level. There are no outliers downwards, which is very good for the performance. In addition to those already mentioned, Mareike Jankowski as the sister-in-law and Martin Fournier in the role of Kuligin should be singled out here. It is the performance of the singers and also the orchestra that make the evening in the Graz Opera an experience. Even if the staging itself can be hotly debated.
This article was automatically translated with deepl.com
“Bones and stones” are two nouns that radiate anything but warmth and security and that one does not necessarily immediately associate with each other. And yet, as Claudia Bosse points out in her latest work, they are inextricably linked. “Bones and Stones” had its world premiere in Hall G of the MuseumsQuartier and – according to the theatre-maker – is soon to move to the great outdoors. This makes sense, because the theme of the performance is the relationship of man to his bony inner life, but also to nature with its stony formations and evolution from the formation of the earth to the present day.
Bosse works with six women ranging in age from 24 to 75, most of whom move naked among the audience during the two-and-a-half-hour performance. You are allowed to wander along with the ensemble or move further away from it. Which position you take is up to you, also how and when you want to change it. In fact, however, most people follow the direction, which makes full use of the space and constantly shifts the focus of the actions. The darkness of the hall and the partial lighting on small “volcanoes” marked with bricks, as well as the first appearance of the women, transports one to a time long before man as a species himself ruled the earth. Equipped with small bones, extensions of toes and fingers, the women act as beings who still have much animalism about and within them. They will remain mute – with exceptions – until the end, but their habitus will change permanently.
After the little ankles have been recognised and shaken off like annoying appendages, one embarks together with the performers on the retelling of human development, starting from prehistory up to the present. It is a narrative without words, with many stops. Those that are easy to grasp and others that leave more room for interpretation.
There masses of bodies are presented as a sculpture placed on the floor, in which life gradually begins to stir. Memories of the artist couple Prince Gholam were evoked as well as works by Mette Ingvartsen. Dancing and aesthetics from the visual arts are skilfully balanced here. Shortly after the women have separated from each other and are now acting as individuals, dressed in long plastic aprons, their smiling faces change. The strongly tightened expulsion from paradise, which the humane beings were still allowed to experience unreflectively, with a smile on their lips, is followed by an action with veritable contempt for humanity. Those who collapse on the ground are roughly dragged away from the surrounding crowd by their arms or legs. With kicks, the extremities of the lifeless bodies are brought into position so that they can be dragged behind them without obstacles. A text accompanies the brutal act by pointing out that it is the bones of the bodies that leave traces on the ground. This draws attention to the physicality of women. But not to those stereotypes that are usually paid attention to in women – their faces, their breasts, their hips. Rather, it is now the skeleton that suddenly acquires a strong moment of attraction. This is reinforced by a scene in which most of the audience looks at the sitting and standing women from behind. Slow movements with stretches to the left and right from their centre illustrate the flexibility of their spine and also skilfully bring into focus the shaping of their shoulder blades.
Again and again, questions about one’s own physical constitution arise as one follows the performance. Where do we come from, what do we carry within us that was already there thousands and millions of years ago? How does this special way of seeing change the way we look at ourselves, but also the way we look at others? What role do we play as part of nature on this earth?
Dionysian moments with live sung and spoken fragments of sound and language push the imagined wheel of time forward by millennia shortly afterwards, leaving it somewhere between industrialisation and Wagner’s Grail myth. The sound of sweaty hammering on large chunks of stone merges with a powerful female voice repeating the sentence “reality exists of processes rather than material object” several times. The sound layer – ingeniously produced in many facets by Günther Auer from the beginning – becomes denser and reaches ecstatic proportions, also through the vocal accompaniment.
In the silence that follows, the oldest performer, equipped with two shopping bags, crosses the room and finally pours the contents – brightly polished pig bones – onto the floor. One by one, the women pick some out of the small pile and carry them to other places in the room to rearrange them. In time, the archaeological gaze with which the bones are put together to form new shapes spills over to the audience. The reference to the danger and fragility of nature is not omitted. Cylindrical glass containers containing small biospheres convey the impression of preserved nature in a dystopian future. They symbolise a remnant of what the earth was once made of.
It would not be a work by Claudia Bosse if she did not explicitly deal with the medium of theatre in it. And she does so with a grand finale. In it, she evokes an image of a sleeping woman in a place created like a circus, which places everything that could be seen before in the realm of dreams.
With Anna Biczók, Myrthe Bokelmann, Anita Kaya, Carla Rihl, Marcela San Pedro and Christa Zuna-Kratky, the ensemble was homogeneous but also diverse. The clever, all-female cast made it possible to avoid raising questions about male and female identity, rivalry, attraction and repulsion, which meant concentrating on the human in itself. One can look forward to the continuation in the outdoor space.
This text was automatically translated with deepl.com
What the dishes tell us about “Hiša Denk about “Hiša Denk
Kulinarisch-literarische Betrachtungen – Folge 1
Michaela Preiner
Passing colourful forests and still green vineyards, we head through autumnal southern Styria to “Hisa Denk” in Slovenia, a few minutes’ drive from the Spielfeld border. At first glance, Gregor Vračko’s gourmet restaurant looks like a Sleeping Beauty. Built in a modern style, yet with noble restraint, it unfolds its charm only shortly after entering.
The attentive, young service, leather-clad and urbane in appearance, is well informed about likes and dislikes in advance. When you are greeted at the counter, you can catch a glimpse of the kitchen through the glass door. There, too, it is young people who are concentrated on their work.
There is a reason why the dishes you are served are nameless: they speak to the guests, you just have to listen a little! But since it is the name that makes a course unmistakable and at the same time captures the ephemeral, I have taken the liberty of giving each one a name.
Deer, beef and goose celebrate autumn
“We amuse-gueule bites kick things off by showing you what autumn can taste like!” Goose liver with porcini cream, doughnuts with beef filling, tacos with venison tartare and a porcini butter in the company of home-baked white sourdough bread make for a cheerful debut.
The pumpkin shines in competition with the radishes
Pink and orange glow from the starter plate. Delicately melting pumpkin ice cream, pickled radishes, chestnut puree and a smooth dressing, green-splashed on the plate’s base, instantly charm and ask: “Aren’t we a work of art?”
A Reinanke dresses up
Reinanken fillets surrounded by potato scallops with mushroom gôut and tender spinach leaves flirt in a salami costume. “Oops, you wouldn’t have expected that from us,” they joke non-verbally from the plate. Culinary humour in a gourmet restaurant – without any obtrusiveness – that is something refreshingly new.
Star appearance for a prawn
“They can be funny all they want, but I’m the star” – that’s how it sounds from the first moment the giant shrimp settles down in front of you. A hint of verbena, a delicate hint of leek and pieces of cauliflower, as if lifted from a silhouette album, rejoice in their noble appearance on the iridescent shell.
The char twice in love
“Come on, let`s go!”, says the char to his own tartare, which is shamefacedly staying a little away from his plate. However, the king of freshwater fish cannot hide the fact that his love for the neighbouring porcini cream is by no means merely platonic.
A calf’s cheek is banging for time
“Enough of quick deeds, now experience what it means to have been carefully and long braised”, you learn when you take your first bite into the veal cheek, which comes up trumps with “cabbage noodles” and a truffle cream.
The quail’s egg is not the quail’s egg
What already began with the Reinanken costume finds its unsurpassed continuation on the quail plate. Quail breast and shank have a “fake quail egg” in tow, which turns out to be enchanted yellow beet and celery with foie gras grated on top. Figs and beetroot glow as if they are aware of what would be missing without them.
The King of the Forest does the honours
His Majesty the Stag knows that he must only surround himself with tastes that are worthy of him. Mashed Jerusalem artichokes and spinach as an entourage have skilfully brought a sauce level with cocoa and elderberry cream to their side. “Melting on the tongue is my speciality,” the king of the forest announces to the palate.
“Forget the strudel”, says the plum
“I have learned more than just the subject of strudel,” the educated plum exults in jelly and foam, accompanied by yoghurt, cinnamon and white chocolate.
The Pear Celebrates Wedding
“I want my appearance to be all white”, demands a noble pear, crowned with a delicate honeycomb veil and surrounded by light vanilla cream.
Grapes on the catwalk!
Finally, dark and white grapes delight with the claim: “If we’re going to dress up, let’s dress up in haute couture”. This comes in the form of ice cream sticks, pralines or dumplings with filling and graciously leaves a coconut-flavoured mochi on the catwalk as well.
The warm autumn sun makes the colourful leaves in the Hiša Thinking Garden glow. On the neighbouring property, you can see that the parent building will soon be joined by like-minded neighbours. The informality that the restaurant conveys on every visit – despite the exceptionally high quality of the food, you never get the impression that you have to be elitist – guarantees that you will come back. Next season at the latest.
Deer, beef and goose celebrate autumn
“We amuse-gueule bites kick things off by showing you what autumn can taste like!” Goose liver with porcini cream, doughnuts with beef filling, tacos with venison tartare and a porcini butter in the company of home-baked white sourdough bread make for a cheerful debut.
The pumpkin shines in competition with the radishes
Pink and orange glow from the starter plate. Delicately melting pumpkin ice cream, pickled radishes, chestnut puree and a smooth dressing, green-splashed on the plate’s base, instantly charm and ask: “Aren’t we a work of art?”
A Reinanke dresses up
Reinanken fillets surrounded by potato scallops with mushroom gôut and tender spinach leaves flirt in a salami costume. “Oops, you wouldn’t have expected that from us,” they joke non-verbally from the plate. Culinary humour in a gourmet restaurant – without any obtrusiveness – that is something refreshingly new.
Star appearance for a prawn
“They can be funny all they want, but I’m the star” – that’s how it sounds from the first moment the giant shrimp settles down in front of you. A hint of verbena, a delicate hint of leek and pieces of cauliflower, as if lifted from a silhouette album, rejoice in their noble appearance on the iridescent shell.
The char twice in love
“Come on, let`s go!”, says the char to his own tartare, which is shamefacedly staying a little away from his plate. However, the king of freshwater fish cannot hide the fact that his love for the neighbouring porcini cream is by no means merely platonic.
A calf’s cheek is banging for time
“Enough of quick deeds, now experience what it means to have been carefully and long braised”, you learn when you take your first bite into the veal cheek, which comes up trumps with “cabbage noodles” and a truffle cream.
The quail’s egg is not the quail’s egg
What already began with the Reinanken costume finds its unsurpassed continuation on the quail plate. Quail breast and shank have a “fake quail egg” in tow, which turns out to be enchanted yellow beet and celery with foie gras grated on top. Figs and beetroot glow as if they are aware of what would be missing without them.
The King of the Forest does the honours
His Majesty the Stag knows that he must only surround himself with tastes that are worthy of him. Mashed Jerusalem artichokes and spinach as an entourage have skilfully brought a sauce level with cocoa and elderberry cream to their side. “Melting on the tongue is my speciality,” the king of the forest announces to the palate.
“Forget the strudel”, says the plum
“I have learned more than just the subject of strudel,” the educated plum exults in jelly and foam, accompanied by yoghurt, cinnamon and white chocolate.
The Pear Celebrates Wedding
“I want my appearance to be all white”, demands a noble pear, crowned with a delicate honeycomb veil and surrounded by light vanilla cream.
Grapes on the catwalk!
Finally, dark and white grapes delight with the claim: “If we’re going to dress up, let’s dress up in haute couture”. This comes in the form of ice cream sticks, pralines or dumplings with filling and graciously leaves a coconut-flavoured mochi on the catwalk as well.
The warm autumn sun makes the colourful leaves in the Hiša Thinking Garden glow. On the neighbouring property, you can see that the parent building will soon be joined by like-minded neighbours. The informality that the restaurant conveys on every visit – despite the exceptionally high quality of the food, you never get the impression that you have to be elitist – guarantees that you will come back. Next season at the latest.
