For a long time I’ve been striving to look more at inner values. Logically, Max Sitegl’s offal menue at Gut Purbach has been on my to-do-list ever since. I knew the restaurant from previous visits and was expecting only the best. So one sunny Thursday evening we went out to my homeland to explore the „inside“ of food.
We were welcomed warmly as always. In advance I’ve written an email with a special wish, concerning a religious dietary law, to which the team very friendly replied. They also wrote it down with our reservation and considered it without saying – thumbs up for that!
So let’s start with the tasty cover (no mini rolls this time!! :-)):
We chose the 10-course menu with the very well calculated wine pairing (without thinking it to the end – 10×0.125 = 1.25 litres of wine – oh my dear! – I rolled out there like a teenager from an all-you-can-drink-party). First course:
A real beautiful, spring-inspired start into the evening! The liver was amazingly tender, tasty and well marinated. The filling of the raspberrys was sour (lemon gelée ?) – so the dish had a very interesting balance between sweet- and sourness.
One of the absolute highlights: The soft, fatty and tender kidney had a very subtle taste. The herbs on the other hand had a very wild, bitterish and natural taste. I didn’t taste the dijon-sauce, no problem though. My wife’s favorite.
The tripe was good (though last time it seemed softer), I especially liked it in combination with the intenese smoked roe. I would have preferred the tripe in smaller pieces, so it was a bit chewy – on the other hand the highest possible contrast in texture to the kidney before.
The heart was VERY good, tasty and soft with a nice texture. The pollen gave the rather dark and heavy dish a good twist along with the (quite intense) green celery. The gnocchi were definetely wrong – small, hard potato balls 🙁
A flawlessly prepared Austrian classic – very tasty! The dumpling had a lot of butter in it – but why not?!
Oh my god! This was so intense. The moment the waiter brought the plate, an offaly smell surrounded us. Andouillette is a french intestine sausage, that definetely doesn’t obscure where it comes from. It was like biting directly into an animal’s intestants. The sausage was nicely grilled and had a pleasant texture. The pea cream had no chance at all, every spoon of the cream tasted like Andouillette. An experience – don’t wan’t to miss it (but also don’t want it on a regular basis…).
This was probably the most „pleasant“ dish of the evening. The liver was perfectly grilled, pink inside and had a very clean and fresh taste. The sauce was very harmonic. Excellent Knödel (dumpling) on top!!
I’ve been looking forward to this for so long…the testicles were hidden behind the euphemism „autumn schnitzel“. I didn’t expect the balls to be that big (and flat, by the way – maybe they were plated). The smell was a little bit offaly, but the taste surprisingly boring. The texture was very interesting though: Hard but in the same moment a little bit glibberish. Unfortunately the breading was kind of soft – personally I like it more crispy. After all I had 2 of them (wife refused)…poor bull 🙂
My personal favorite: The brain had an unbeliefable, mesmerizing texture – it was like eating a cloud! The taste was very gentle and beautiful – a nice contrast to the down-to-earth flavour of the mussels and the wild broccoli, that was very green and herbal (again, for me a little bit too much green celery).
Balls the second. Every time Stiegl uses quotation marks on his menue you can expect a surprise. This was his interpretation of the Austrian classic potato goulash – but this time with lamb testicles. They are much smaller than the bull’s ones. Much more firm and compact, with a pleasant lamb taste. A very nice last course (and also a reference to the public Austrian midnight goulash on weddings and parties). Nice detail: The (a little bit too hard) potatos were cut out as small balls… 🙂
By then it was around 23:00 (we started at 18:30 !)…time for puns. After a lot of balls there had to come some gender-compensation. The surprise desert had this weird shape, but tasted fresh and light – the key criterion after such a lot of food.
The offal menue was a real experience, thrilling and interesting! It’s incredible what Max Stiegl does in his small (!) kitchen. This evening we waited for some courses quite a time – but whatever. Going out is as much about the company as about the food. The wine pairing was – as always – very nice, mostly with local options. The menue was 95 euros, the wine pairing 40 euros. If you dare you should try this!
