I am most definetely not vegetarian. But as the Vienna-based and vegetarian restaurant Tian was awarded a Michelin star, it interested me a lot. Being (back then) the fourth vegetarian restaurant to carry a Michelin star the cuisine of head chef Paul Ivic should be worth a visit.
Tian is located in the heart of Vienna, near the famous Ringstraße. The interior is rather spartanic, with lot of grey tones and modern arrangements of plants. I did not exactly feel like home but it was comfortable.
The restaurant offers a strictly vegetarian menu with highly interesting dishes. Since my visit some time has passed, it is interesting what stayed in my memory…
I remember this being a very comforting combinatino. Potato, egg and truffle…match made in heaven 🙂
Here I loved the contrast between the meaty texture and earthy taste of the musrooms in contrast to the fresh and crunchy kohlrabi.
For me, this was the most outstanding dish of the whole menu: Ivic recreated the experience of Japanese dashi by using different carrots in different preparations. First of all it really tasted like dashi, but also the play of textures from creamy to firm was just like you would expect from a perfect japanese dashi with tofu. Deeply impressing.
This was as awkward as nice: A perfect recreation of a Bavarian „Weisswurst“ meal – a sausage made of mushrooms, crispy pretzel dumpings and crunchy cabbage, bound together by a light mustard sauce.
Just perfect pasta – as you can guess from the picture.
A very interesting plate that I remember very well, since the jerusalem artichoke with it’s meaty texture was an excellent protagonist for a main course.
On our evening the service had some potential – at some point in the evening the waiters just started to ignore us and didn’t offer explanations for the dishes and the wine any more.
The meal was amazing, it was really interesting to see what can be done without using any animal products. The only thing I was pondering afterwards was the price structure: Since „only“ vegetables are used the menu was a bit overpriced in my opinion compared to menus using more cost-intensive ingredients. However I liked the distinct approach to fine dining that makes Tian most definetely worth visiting.
Visit: November 2015
Michelin stars at time of visit: *
Budget: 175€/person
Location: 6/10
Service: 6/10
Food: 7/10
