Vienna Rick Stein's Long Weekends

A little bit of what you fancy does you good.

And that's precisely what I think about taking off on a long weekend.

Not too far away, not obvious like Paris or Rome.

I'll dive into the culture, take in some history,

but food will always be key.

So, if you like chocolatey... I mean really chocolatey cakes,

or apple strudels straight from the oven.

Or a really delicious dish called tafelspitz...

it's a sort of upmarket boiled beef and carrots.

Or you just like walking around fantastic buildings

and seeing an exhibition or two...

well, this could be right up your street.

# Hey, Rick

# Where we going this weekend? #

Vienna.

# Are we flying a few hours away?

# For some delicious food they say

# So, Rick, make the booking and let's get cooking

# And get those taste buds going this weekend. #

I've only been out of the airport for about half an hour,

just entering the city.

The first thing I'm really looking forward to...

Because I saw a big ad in the airport for a Wiener schnitzel.

I've been travelling all day. I'm hungry.

Really looking forward to that.

And some Austrian beer to go with it.

Or maybe a glass of their excellent white wine.

But during my time here,

what I really want to do is go to a concert hall and listen to a waltz.

SO looking forward to that.

And finally,

what I would really like to do is just sit in a cafe somewhere.

Just take on board that cafe culture.

Just order one coffee,

try not to upset the waiter and just read the paper all morning.

Some chance!

This is my base for a long weekend.

Nice bar.

I think this is what they're doing in Europe.

They're taking your average budget-style hotel that we all know

and making it more funky.

Slightly arty, no-frills, or wardrobes.

Not a sign of a Corby 500.

No towels posing as elephants or swans, thank you.

Ah.

That's nice.

Got a little log fire going for me.

HE CHUCKLES

Ah.

Ah. Look at that.

Hello, Vienna.

How to see Vienna?

Well, you HAVE to see Vienna.

Maybe in one of these fine landaus, which would be nice.

Or the crew van, driven by our trusty Austrian fixer, Roland.

Now, if in another life, I'd been born a mouse

living in the biggest and most expensive wedding cake

that's ever been made, then I think I should feel quite at home here.

For lovers of architecture, this is the grande bouffe.

To build palaces like this you need lots of cash.

From preferably a huge empire that would stretch over

quite a lot of central Europe.

Yes, and that means surely lots of taxes to pay for Doric columns

and heroic figures on horseback.

But...I like the sausage stands.

I love bratwurst sausages, and especially the mustard -

the senf.

I'm not that overexcited to see the not-so-blue Danube,

but I couldn't help wondering whether a trip

from the Black Forest, its source, to the Black Sea,

going through ten countries or so,

would be inspiring in a culinary sort of sense.

Note in the margin - "Might make a good barge series."

Of course, my Vienna has to pay homage to that classic film noir

The Third Man.

The Ferris wheel at the Prater Amusement Park.

Or the amazing sewers that

so much fascinated the writer Graham Greene, my hero.

I love this little statue of Johann Strauss, it's...

Actually, Vienna's quite a compact city, the centre of it is.

Whenever you're walking you seem to see this in the distance somewhere.

See the gold leaf and it just stands out.

I don't know if it's any great sort of artistic shakes,

but it really means a lot to me.

Because if you look at these wraiths around, or nymphets,

or one of those things. I'm not quite sure which...

It's about the Danube.

It's about the currents in the Danube.

And these beautiful girls that sort of swim like mermaids in the Danube.

And to me, the Blue Danube is like a full restaurant.

It's like full of joy, full of movement, full of activity.

And that's why I like it so much. I've always liked it.

I used to play the Blue Danube in my discos

and show pictures of sort of scenes like this

because I loved it so much.

I'm going to have lunch,

Vienna's most famous dish, Wiener schnitzel,

with Martina Hohenlohe.

She's a food writer and a member of Austrian nobility.

Well, they no longer have special privileges.

These were done away with after the First World War,

but once an aristo, always an aristo.

Now, this is a proper lesson in how to make the best schnitzel,

through the know-how of the executive chef here, Rupert Schnait.

First, Rupert cuts each slice from a loin of veal.

They also love it made from pork, but this is veal.

Next, Rupert's assistant gives the escalope a bit of a bashing.

Using sensibly thick plastic.

Now, the flattened escalope goes into the flour.

Next, the egg, making sure it's all coated.

And then, oven-dried breadcrumbs.

And now - this is so important - hot, clarified butter.

I'm told by Rupert that the secret of a good schnitzel is getting

the air between the meat and the crispy egg-and-bread-crumb coating.

Not too much though.

This is how it should be.

Mm. That's a nice smell.

'Golden, slightly puffed up and irresistible.

'All they need is just a sprinkling of lemon juice.'

Oh.

That's so good.

-It's lovely, isn't it?

-Yeah.

I could be very full of superlatives,

but it is just exactly how it should be.

We are kind of proud of our schnitzel.

But you know, actually, we stole it.

-Really?

-It's not ours.

It came from Italy.

It's called cotoletta alla milanese there.

And the Emperor, Franz Joseph, was very much into food

and he sent his field marshal, Radetzky, to Italy,

to Lombardia, to report about the situation there.

And he did and he also brought back the recipe of

this lovely piece of meat, cotoletta alla milanese,

and that's how the schnitzel came to Vienna.

I love that.

I love food and history related.

Because I think food is so important in history and then...

-Absolutely, it's our culture, you know.

-It is. It is.

There's a big fuss about the schnitzel, you know.

Austrians really, they are talking so much about

which piece of meat to take,

how to make it in the deep fryer, in the pan,

with oil, or with lard, or with clarified butter.

So, there's a big discussion.

It's a very emotional piece of meat.

I have to say.

As a chef, I love dishes like this.

Because I think there's as much skill

-in producing something like this well.

-Absolutely.

Do you like this sort of food?

Or do you like fussy, you know, new-cheffy dishes?

I like new-cheffy dishes, I like avant-garde,

but in between I need a schnitzel.

Yeah, I really have to say that.

To clean my mind, to clear my taste, my palate.

It's... Sometimes you just need some comfort food, I think.

-Right.

-Right, so.

-Tuck in.

And also, I tell you what I really like is this salad.

It's good.

I so enjoyed talking to Martina Hohenlohe.

And as she left, she gave me a cookery book

of classic Viennese recipes.

And this is a herring and potato salad from it.

It's a salad that you find everywhere in Vienna.

So, it's important to have waxy potatoes.

Things like Jersey Royal, funnily enough, which these are.

And actually it's a bit of a bore,

but it's much better as the Austrians do...

to boil them in their skins.

And then take the skins off afterwards.

Because then you get a lot more flavour, both from the peel,

but also the peel holds the flavour in.

OK, there we go.

That looks very nice already.

And now for the pickled herrings.

At the end of the carnival season in November,

they traditionally bring out the herrings.

And maybe because Austria hasn't got a coastline,

that's perhaps why they appreciate them all the more.

Now, some more sharpness with some gherkins.

Slice those up.

And then some more piquancy with capers.

The thing about this salad is, it's a mixture of bland things

like potato and like these cannellini beans

that I'm putting in,

which are offset by the capers and the gherkins.

Now then, apple for sweetness.

And a little bit more astringency.

There we go. And now some very finely chopped onions.

Very important to be very finely chopped.

Now, the remainder of the ingredients.

Well, this is a balancing act of flavours and textures.

Anchovies for that salty savouriness.

Mayonnaise.

Sour cream.

And a dollop of senf - German mustard.

And now an enormously important ingredient.

Horseradish.

And this is fresh horseradish which you can get anywhere in Venice...

Venice? What's my problem?

I'm going to too many cities.

So, plenty of horseradish here.

And it's a really hot in the root form.

I can sort of feel it's going up my nose.

Now, just a little bit of cider vinegar.

And it very important in Vienna to use cider vinegar.

They love their apples.

And that includes the vinegar, as well.

Finally, some salt. A judicious amount.

Some freshly-ground black pepper.

20 turns of the peppermill.

That's the way I always measure it.

Stir a bit more.

And now put that on a nice oval plate.

I always think salads like this look better on an oval.

I don't know why.

Now, I'm just going to finish with some lovely slices of egg.

And plenty of dill.

That is a lovely, lovely salad.

And I really think herrings in that salad are perfection.

I have to say, I really like continental breakfasts.

Not everyone's cup of tea, I know.

I like their hams.

And I like the slightly plasticky cheese.

Good with tomato and boiled egg.

I can never find the teaspoons or the butter.

Never.

And mostly I can't work the coffee machine.

This one's OK because it's a model I'm familiar with.

This is a businessperson's hotel.

It's less than 100 euros a night, bang in the centre,

late-night bar - not that we ever used that.

Oh, no!

And it's friendly.

# Love is all that I can give to you. #

And music at breakfast thrown in by one of the waitresses,

desperate to be a singer.

Her name's Mona.

A brave girl, I think.

A difficult audience.

But I think she's rather good.

When I first sat down, I didn't know what to think.

After a couple of mouthfuls of coffee you think,

"Actually, this is rather good fun."

-APPLAUSE

-Thank you. How very nice of you.

'Well, the egg's a bit overdone, but they're bound to be, aren't they?'

One of the things I really enjoy, being a cook,

is that I go to find things in cities that nobody else

would dream to go look for.

And this is a case in point.

This is a statue of one Colonel Kulczycki,

who was involved in the final cavalry charge

which broke the Turk siege of Vienna.

And after the Turks had all fled,

they found all these pots and bags of beans.

And nobody knew what they were.

They thought the beans were probably camel food.

But Kulczycki knew.

Because he'd been in a Turkish prison

and he knew that they were coffee beans and coffee-making equipment.

And he said, "I'll look after these."

Took them away and founded the first coffee house in Vienna.

The rest, of course, is history.

In this case, it really was history.

People who study such things

will say there was an Armenian coffee house here

before Kulczycki came along.

But that's all part of the cafe culture -

something I want to get to know about.

James Mowlam is an Englishman who fell in love with Vienna.

Incidentally, all the leading artists

and intellectuals in their day had their own favourite cafe.

This one, Landtmann, was Dr Sigmund Freud's.

Ah, good.

I must say, having read about the Cafe Landtmann,

I don't think I'd have had the bottle to come here on my own.

It seems so formal and the waiters look a bit sort of imposing.

Well, you are a bit underdressed.

Well, actually, compared to you, of course I'm underdressed.

Just give me sort of some tips on what to do, or not to do.

-OK, don't ask for a coffee in a cafe.

-Right.

You know, the way...

That's like a cardinal sin, if you like.

What do you ask for?

Well, you've got about 12 different types of coffee.

OK, give us a couple then...

A couple. I mean, what we're drinking here is a melange.

-A melange.

-Which is kind of a bit like a cappuccino,

but without the chocolate on top.

If you ask for a cappuccino here they'd put cream on it and stuff.

It's a disgusting thing.

But, you know, you're supposed to know before you order.

What about if I dared to attract a waiter's attention.

-What would I say to him?

-Well, do you want to do it now?

Well, I'll try. Can you do for me?

There's...

THEY CONVERSE IN GERMAN

-Do you want a cake?

-Strudel?

-Strudel.

-Strudel.

-I'd like a strudel.

-Apple strudel?

-Yeah.

With vanilla sauce, with whipped cream or plain?

I like it with vanilla sauce.

-That would be very nice.

-Don't call it...

-One or two?

-Two, please.

-Two.

-Don't call it custard.

-OK, I promise.

-Yeah. No custard.

-OK.

-Vanilla sauce.

Thank you.

-He seemed quite nice.

-Yeah, he's very nice.

-I think it's because the camera's here.

-Ah.

Don't forget this is his patch.

The customer is not king.

The customer is the sort of lowly prince compared to the waiter,

who is in fact king.

Or probably, in Vienna, emperor.

-Emperor.

-Yeah.

Actually, I quite like that.

You know, because in the UK we're always so sort of like,

"Have you had... Is everything all right?" Everything like this.

-This is how we have to be.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But actually if they've got a bit of attitude,

I find that quite good news.

-Thank you.

-Oh, that looks nice.

-So, this is not custard.

-This is not custard.

-This is vanilla sauce.

-Great.

-Enjoy your meal.

-Thank you.

-Danke schon.

I've got a great story about a friend of mine,

who's actually German, not Austrian, and...

Bit of a downer being German in Austria, isn't it?

A little bit. A little bit.

But probably don't talk about that. Erm, yeah.

He came into a cafe and asked if he could have gravy with his schnitzel.

And the waiter promptly asked him to leave.

And the Viennese way in particular, or the Austrian way,

is much, much, much more relaxed.

They're not so regimented.

They've always got time for a coffee.

They've always got time for a beer.

They've always got time for a little chat.

They've always got time to make a joke.

You know, it's that kind of place.

Well, let's tuck into our apple strudel and custard.

-Custard? You can't call it custard.

-Sorry. Apple strudel...

-Vanilla sauce.

-Vanilla sauce.

-Vanilla sauce.

He'll get most offended.

-You don't want to upset the waiter any more.

-No.

They're so considerate, the Viennese.

Instead of having little green men,

they've got little green same-sex partners

helping you to cross safely.

Anyway, rot ist stehen, grun ist gehen.

I've walked to hundreds of restaurants

making these programmes over the years.

Usually, they're doing something innovative with food

that I want to know about.

But at the moment, I couldn't care less about that.

Because it's lunchtime and I'm ravenous.

And this restaurant, run for years by Christian Wanek,

has a brilliant reputation for really well-cooked,

no-frills local dishes.

Couldn't be better.

-Hello, Rick, how are you?

-Christian. Nice to meet you.

Yeah, nice to meet you. Hello.

Good.

-Well...

-"Was werden wir heute machen, wir zwei," you'd say.

-Erm...what?

-What will we do together?

Well, I'd quite like... THEY LAUGH

-Cooking.

-Yeah, why not?

-Yes!

THEY LAUGH

If you like steak, you'll love this.

Zwiebelrostbraten.

First of all, Christian bashes out a couple

of really good entrecote steaks.

Then he seasons them greatly and pan-fries them

one by one in a smattering of oil.

Then, in the same frying pan, he adds beef stock...

..and a couple of generous dollops of butter,

whisking as it reduces.

Christian, I like this sauce. Very simple. Good stock, I guess.

-Beef?

-Yeah, beef.

-The beef is very important.

-It looks good.

-Plenty of butter.

-Yes, but the important thing

-is you have a good, er...

-Stock.

-Yes.

That is superb. It's all about your stock.

'I think this dish is all about onions, really.

'He makes sure that all the onions are coated in the flour

'and deep-fries them.'

Christian, why do you enjoy cooking?

Why do you like it so much?

Yeah, because before I like to eat

and look how the people cook.

How my mother was cooking in my house.

And, so, I start to cook.

-And every day you enjoy it?

-Every day.

When you don't like, you cannot make this profession,

because I work here 15 hours every day.

In my kitchen.

A few fried potatoes on the side,

along with gherkins and mustard - senf, love it.

Robust food to say the least.

Remember, it's called zwiebelrostbraten.

This is really good.

Thank you, Rick.

This is food that makes me greedy.

You get food that's very intellectual,

very, sort of, like thoughtful.

You say, "Oh, yes, that's nice."

This, I just say, "Shut up.

-"I want to carry on eating because it is so good."

-Thank you, Rick.

THEY LAUGH

-Prost.

-Prost.

-GLASSES CLINK

250 years ago,

this will have been the centre for musical excellence.

Here there were patrons and patronage

and people with a good ear who could tell the wheat from the chaff.

People who liked talking and people who had the ear of the Emperor.

Yes. It was a good place to be a musician.

Well, I had to come here.

This is when Mozart composed The Marriage of Figaro,

probably my favourite opera.

There were loads of musicians all over Vienna.

I suppose they are a bit like rock and roll stars.

And they were always practising and writing music day and night.

And the neighbours would say, "Shut up, get out",

and so they were always being moved on.

So, in fact, he lived here for a while,

but when he died he was somewhere else.

That's when he wrote the Requiem, as he was dying,

probably because he'd been chucked out of here.

HE LAUGHS

MUSIC: Requiem: Tex Tremendae Majestatis by Mozart

This restaurant is home to one of Vienna's most famous dishes.

Second only to the schnitzel.

It's called tafelspitz.

And it's a dish of three acts.

Number one, the soup.

Vegetables in a beef broth with sliced pancake.

Number two, the marrowbone jelly on toast.

And number three, the beef with apple sauce,

freshly grated horseradish, bread sauce and spinach.

This was the favourite dish of the Emperor Franz Joseph.

I think this is topside,

but our cuts are a bit different.

Maybe silverside.

They go in for two and a half hours.

-After two and a half hours, the thing looks like this.

-Wow.

-Look at that.

-Yes.

Oh, such a lovely beefy aroma.

And look at that stock.

I mean, that is so full of flavour.

Now we're going to cool this down right over here.

-I see.

-In ice water.

-And that's to make it easier to cut?

-Exactly.

-That's the way.

-Gosh.

-And now we continue to finish the soup.

-Ah.

'He puts in carrots, celeriac, leeks,

'peppercorns, bay leaves

'and onions that have been roasted already.

'You can buy them already cooked in the market.

'Meanwhile, the beef joints have been cooled in the icy water

'and they're sliced.'

Just looking at this cut, this tafelspitz,

it's got quite a lot of connective tissue, and so long, slow-cooking.

It'll stay nice and moist.

And you can see, after two hours cooking,

it still looks really juicy even when it's cold.

And very appetising, very nice colour.

And if that was a, sort of, leaner joint, it would all fall apart.

I can see now why he needs to chill it with the ice,

because it just makes it, you can cut it, because

when we eat this, it'll be, like, almost falling apart in your mouth.

-Exactly. Very good.

-RICK LAUGHS

'A food writer said that people liked tafelspitz 100 years ago,

'they like it now

'and they'll like it in 100 years' time.

'I think he's right.

'Incidentally, this is one of

'Vladimir Putin's favourite restaurants.

'And they said he has a great sense of humour.'

It's just fantastic, but also I was just thinking it works so well.

Everywhere we've been filming, there's been one dish

that people love and there's been one restaurant

that people queue up to get to.

There's a sort of something to be learnt about that,

If you just have one perfect dish like this,

or like fish and chips,

or in Bordeaux, like the place called The Entrecote,

they just served a perfect steak,

people will absolutely make a path to your door.

# Fly me to the moon.

# And let me play among the stars

# Let me see what's... #

I'd like to think that one morning a record producer will be

having a boiled egg and say, "Wow, that's just what I'm looking for."

# Hold my hand... #

Stranger things have happened.

# And adore

# Darling, kiss me... #

This is Demel, arguably the most famous pastry

and chocolate shop in the world.

I had to come here. It's a temple to the art of the pastry chef.

And Vienna has an incredibly sweet tooth.

-Dietmar.

-Nice to meet you, Rick.

You're welcome.

RICK LAUGHS

I love this. Apple strudel. One of my favourite Viennese dishes.

I'm sure it came from the Ottomans originally, with the filo pastry

and the cinnamon.

It's so lovely just to watch these girls lovingly roll the apples,

the sugar, the sultanas, the breadcrumbs in the soft filo pastry.

It's like they're tucking up their babies in time for bed.

This is the main reason I'm here.

I do love strudel, but the sachertorte is a legend here.

I could look all day long at these masters covering the cakes

with this warm, luxurious chocolate.

And the smell.

For me, coming on a long weekend to Vienna,

I could not possibly miss this.

The sachertorte, it is to me what Vienna is all about.

I mean, whenever I think of here, I think of the sachertorte.

I'm lucky enough to have had them all my life,

because my aunt made a really good one,

but to come here to the temple of sachertorte is a complete pleasure.

I've got so much regard for pastry chefs,

or "zuckerbacker" as they call them here.

The man in charge,

who's been here for 35 years, is Dietmar Muthenthaler.

My Aunt Zoe, who was of German extraction,

used to make a sachertorte with two layers of apricot jam.

And then you only have one?

Yes, it's not a problem, calling also Sacher cake.

-OK.

-But don't use any other marmalade.

No marmalade? Strawberry jam?

Other jam like strawberry jam, it's not the same cake.

It's a chocolate cake.

You can make it, it's not a problem. But don't call it Sacher cake.

Fair enough.

So, what would happen if you, one morning, went crazy,

changed the recipe.

No, no, no, it's not possible!

This cake has been the centre of a court case that lasted for years.

It started when a young chef called Sacher trained here,

and while doing so, invented a chocolate torte.

It was lovely and it had a thin line

of apricot jam running through it.

Anyway, some time later,

Sacher moved away and bought his own place further up the street.

This is what it looks like now.

And this is the rub.

He still continued to make his own Sachertorte,

but Demel's thought this wasn't right

because the cake had been created in their premises.

Hence, a big, long, bitter, complicated court case

that went on for years.

Sacher's cake was the only one that could be called

the official Sachertorte.

You can make other ones but this was the official one

and it has a seal, a stamp on it, to show that.

To me, it's a most fascinating piece of history.

Because what does constitute...

Who owns a recipe?

If a chef comes to work for me

and creates something while he's working for me, is it my recipe?

Is it his? I don't know.

It was a great morning at Demel's, watching those apple strudels

being made in great lengths.

Far too much for domestic consumption,

so I'm going to make one just for four and just as good.

I am quite a connoisseur of apple strudel.

What I tend to find is though, with a lot of apple strudels,

they put too much breadcrumb in the filling and it's a bit stodgy.

So I'm being very careful in my recipe to make sure that the filling

is very, very fruity and the breadcrumbs in there

are fried in butter.

The apples go into a bowl and now lemon.

A very generous grating of lemon zest and also the juice of a lemon.

Cinnamon, that's ground cinnamon.

Then currants, caster sugar

and now the breadcrumbs.

I loved watching the strudel being made at Demel's.

They were just throwing it out across the worktop

like a chambermaid laying a bed.

It was whoosh!

They made them in six foot lengths.

This is only going to be about that long.

So, you just have to build up these layers,

about six or seven I like to do.

Previously, I couldn't have made this.

It's not like puff pastry which I actually used to enjoy making,

but now of course you tend to buy it.

But making filo pastry, it is for the professionals.

It is so hard to get it as thin as that and it's not

just about rolling, it's also about throwing it out to stretch it.

But now anybody can make apple strudel.

I have never done this before so I'm just hoping it will work.

I looked it up on YouTube, so...

Well, I've got to be honest!

Here we go.

Oh, that's not too bad. Poking out a bit at the edges, but...yeah.

Now, simply onto my baking sheet.

Perfect.

More butter.

You have to feed it butter, but I don't care.

I love butter. There we go, glistening with butter.

Now, straight into the oven at 190 degrees.

It don't bloody fit!

LAUGHTER

Bake for 40 minutes at 190 degrees.

That's if you find the right baking tray!

And now for custard.

That lovely word, custard.

So much nicer than vanilla sauce.

This is very much on the tourist map of Vienna.

It's a public housing development created by the Austrian artist,

Friedensreich Hundertwasser

and built in the early 80s.

It's the complete opposite of everything else here in the city

and it's very Gaudi-like, very Tolkien and created by a man

who preferred the uneven contours of Mother Nature herself.

He also created more prosaic things like this,

the chimney for Vienna's waste incineration plant.

It's very War of the Worlds, very HG Wells.

It could be the command centre for the aliens, gazing down,

ready to fire their death rays.

You can see it from the vineyards on the extreme outskirts of Vienna.

They are part of the city, and the wine,

especially the white, is fabulous.

The grower and winemaker here is Fritz Wieninger.

All these vineyards belong to Vienna.

Everything is within the city limits of Vienna

and Vienna is situated at the last rolling hills of the Alps.

It is mainly white wine.

Historically it was always white wine in Vienna.

So what are the main grapes that you're growing?

Well, mainly it is a field blend wine. We call it Gemischter Satz,

where different grape varieties are planted in one vineyard,

completely mixed, and you harvest everything together.

No matter if there's a little over ripeness,

a little under ripeness.

The one gives more the exotic fruit,

the other gives more the acidity and freshness.

That is the typical wine of the region, of Vienna,

and it's called Gemischter Satz.

-Gemischter Satz?

-Gemischter Satz.

-I love those German words!

So, wouldn't real wine buffs say, "That couldn't be a great wine

"because they are always down to specific varieties"?

Absolutely wrong. It can be a great wine

because it's not a problem to have different varieties together.

I think it's even a challenge

and it gives the wine the chance

to show more the terroir and less the fruit of distinct varieties,

so it's very interesting.

Do you think it's the wine or growing the vines that makes

winemakers so happy? I have never met a miserable winemaker!

Well, I think it's both, it's the wine and the vineyards

and the winemaking. It's both.

-And the drinking?

-And the drinking!

-Can we go and taste some?

-Yes, of course.

-Let's have a taste.

-Cheers!

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

-Gemischter Satz.

-Mm-hmm, yes.

That is really lovely. Really, really great.

Do you know what I was thinking about, this Gemischter Satz,

the mixed vines everywhere, it's a bit like a mongrel dog.

Pedigree dogs may look prettier and sleeker and smarter,

but there's something about mongrels.

They've got a little mix of this dog, that dog

and every other dog in there,

and they tend to be a bit smarter and live a bit longer.

I think so too, you are absolutely right.

This is five different grape varieties

and everything in one wine, all the good things of the five.

-Prost.

-Cheers. Prost.

'Oh, and this is a real flavour of Vienna.

'Freshly grated horseradish on ham. It's fab!'

-Oh!

-Hot?

-Very hot but lovely! Great idea.

-Very healthy.

-Cleans your nose.

-It does!

We put hot English mustard on ham like this

but this is just as good, even hotter!

-And you have to have a glass of wine.

-I think so. Cheers.

The last time I came here to the Naschmarkt

was in early summer a couple of years ago.

The place was full.

My wife and I had a plate of seafood

and a glass of the local white wine and it was lovely.

Today, it's just above freezing with light hail

and it's blowing a hooley,

but I'll never forget the sauerkraut I tasted here made by Leo,

who was taught by his grandfather at the age of six.

-Hello.

-Hello, sir. Hi.

-Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you, sir.

Very keen on your sauerkraut.

-Yes. Do you want to try it?

-I'd love to try some.

Do you prefer the milder one or the stronger one?

Milder one is to be eaten raw or to make salad from it.

-I'll try some mild and then...

-Yes.

-Can I take some?

-Yes, of course.

-It's really hard to taste it.

It's a very mild one, to be eaten raw or to make salad from it.

-It's really lovely.

-Wonderful taste.

It's really complex in flavour.

I'm just surprised people get so sniffy about sauerkraut.

It is a bit sniffy, but the flavour is so complex.

It's caraway in there, isn't it?

Caraway and juniper berries.

Sensational! Do you think you can taste how good it is for you?

Yes, as my grandfather always said,

"Leo, if you eat sauerkraut, it keeps you alive and healthy,"

because he survived five years imprisoned in First World War.

He was brought to a death camp near Vladivostok

and when they arrived, the temperature was - 40 degrees,

and they had only a thin shirt and a thin jacket and nothing else.

He said, "It was so cold, you can't imagine,"

but they got every day a thin soup of sauerkraut and two potatoes.

Nothing else for the complete day.

So he survived on the sauerkraut?

He said he just got so many vitamins, he was so strong

when he came back, my grandfather said to me,

at least they were allowed to hunt bears.

They made smoked bear meat.

-Men. Real men!

-And sauerkraut.

-Fabulous.

Continuing on a cabbagey theme, this is sarma,

the famous and delicious dish of stuffed cabbage,

and this is Stefanie Herkner and her mum.

They have sarma as their signature dish in their restaurant.

Stefanie starts off by frying onions. Quite a lot!

I'd say about eight.

It's the main dish in the restaurant and she's frying them in goose fat.

Next, we're going to put some bacon,

which actually my uncle makes himself,

so it's the farm of my grandparents

and it has a smoky smell that smells divine.

It does smell divine.

It smells of real wood smoke.

My grandmother is 90 years old and for actually her whole life

she only ate lard fat, so can keep you young as well.

And she's still alive.

Been smoking for a long life!

I know this really smoky fatty bacon will give

so much deep flavour to the dish.

Bacon and cabbage, a fabulous combination.

And now minced pork.

Stefanie says it has to be pork with a bit of fat.

It won't work with beef.

Stefanie, this is so Viennese, stuffed cabbage,

but why do you like local cuisine?

I basically like everything where you have the roots

of the Austro-Hungarian empires.

The most interesting thing about Viennese cooking

or Austrian cooking is actually these sort of different influences

that you have, from Italy, from Hungary, from Serbia,

so this is cooking my grandmother used to have at home and cook, yes.

So, carrots, salt and pepper.

Blimey, that's an awful lot of pepper, and now paprika. Spicy.

-So what's next?

-I'm going to add the rice, it's basically washed rice.

And then the rice should not cook completely through

because we are going to fill it later

and otherwise it becomes too soft, so we're just going to parboil it.

I get you.

Now, these leaves come from the classic big white cabbage

that grow here.

They take a whole lot of these cabbages, put them in whole

in barrels, cover them in salt and press them down with weights

and leave them for two to three months and then they're ready.

It just looks so appetising and I judge that by the fact

I already have had my lunch and I really would like to try this.

Well, that's a compliment!

THEY LAUGH

'Finally, she tops it up with water.

'A bit more paprika, bay leaves and chopped garlic.

'A sprinkling of peppercorns

'and she cooks it through for about 20 minutes or so.

'It doesn't need much, it's sort of cooked already.'

-Oh, that looks nice. Thank you.

-Here you are.

Fantastic. Wow. Great.

That's wonderful, and it is just what I wanted,

it's that sourness of the cabbage that makes the dish.

-Did you like it, Rick?

-Steffy, I loved it!

Great, thank you. I love it.

-You love it too!

-I love that you love it.

'That was so nice and so easy to make,

'it just makes you want to cook.'

I really like Vienna and especially now I've been introduced to it.

I love the cafe culture, there is nothing quite like it at home,

but we do have our pubs. Or at least we did!

I think that cafes like this are unique to Vienna.

There's something very relaxing about them.

You just come in here and you just have a cup of coffee

and you don't feel rushed.

You feel you can just sit here and read the newspaper

or probably in the olden days you could get your post sent over

and play cards perhaps, and you just feel it's

a generous atmosphere and it's also the place where you think

great conversations you'd have,

because you're not under any commercial pressure.

That's what I like.

And this one is just lovely because it's so beautifully old-fashioned.

Someone said it's a place where you relish time and space

but only get charged for the coffee.

And those of my friends who love going to art galleries

and museums said, "If you're going to Vienna, you've got to go

"and see the Klimts at the Belvedere Museum.

"If you don't, you're a complete idiot."

I'm not an art historian, but I do admire Klimt's work.

He was indeed a man who loved women in every sense of the word.

Also he knew, as every wise man knows,

that it's women who really control relationships.

When you come to Vienna, you have to come to the Belvedere.

You'll feel you've let yourself down if you don't.

When you come to the Belvedere,

you've got to come to see these Klimts.

But a word of advice, come early.

This room is packed for most of the day.

At one end you've got Judith,

and at the other end you've got my favourite, The Kiss.

The Kiss interests me because it was inspired by a visit by Klimt

to the famous basilica in Ravenna.

The byzantine mosaics there are fabulous.

It's a shrine to the Emperor Justinian

and his beloved wife Theodora.

The gold and the vibrant colours

leave a very strong impression on anybody.

It stayed in my mind on my journey from Venice to Istanbul

and they must have had a terrific effect on Klimt

because it completely changed his style after he'd seen them.

No-one really knows who the lovers are,

but I like to think of them as Justinian and Theodora.

Maybe that's who they are supposed to be anyway but Klimt never let on.

This is Trzesniewski's.

In their advertising blurb, they say that Kafka lived next door

and would pop in for a beer and a sandwich.

Actually, in 1913, Trotsky, Tito, Freud,

Hitler and Stalin all lived in Vienna.

Maybe they'd come in here for a really big argument and a sandwich.

Could I have matjes? Danke schoen.

It was a Polish cook that started it in 1902,

and it's so clever,

because each and every one of these little sandwiches -

and there are about 22 different sorts - are all the same price.

That makes things so easy.

Speck. Bacon and egg. Speck.

Danke schoen.

'Sardines and anchovies, cheese and ham, herring and onion.

'You name it, it's here.'

-And crab?

-Ja.

'But the most popular by far is egg and bacon.

'Who would have thought that?'

I must say, as a caterer, this is a great idea,

and to think it's over 100 years old,

because there's no preparation,

you don't stand and wait while people do things.

It's all there ready to go.

There's a limited number of flavours,

all of which are really nice.

So it's quick, it's very, very fast turnover.

There's no problems, really modern thinking,

but what you get with it too I think's really attractive.

Just a little tiny beer. They call it a pfiff.

That doesn't mean that it's a fifth of a litre.

Pfiff in German means a whistle, possibly because

it's gone in a whistle!

This is one of the oldest restaurants in Vienna, Meixner's.

They are famous for their traditional Viennese dishes,

and one in particular, and that's goulash.

Thank you. That looks really nice.

I'm not even going to taste the meat

because I just want to taste the sauce, goulash.

As somebody who lived through the '60s, '70s and '80s I've had

that many goulashes, but none of them I thought were the real deal.

Most of them had loads of green peppers, red peppers,

lots of tomato, and what I thought was really this would be

mostly about the paprika and indeed it is.

I sort of feel that with a dish like this you can never have

too much paprika, sweet paprika,

and it's just got this lovely thickness about it

and a sweetness, and I just think this is as good as it gets.

I don't know, but I suspect that you wouldn't get

a better goulash anywhere.

Sadly, they wouldn't give me the recipe,

but that's a bit of a challenge to a chef.

I just decided to make one that was possibly even better!

First of all, lots of onions, about eight.

Onions are, like in so many things, the key. They are fried in lard.

I love lard, and it's coming back into fashion with loads of chefs.

Now when the onions have softened a bit,

grate in two plump cloves of garlic, and now the beef.

Shin of beef cut into generous chunks.

Shin is really good

because you get this gelatinous quality with it,

which makes the gravy very silky,

and of course, if you cook it long enough,

it's so tender and full of flavour and not that expensive.

I like it when a dish has history.

Goulash certainly has history.

It came from Hungary, from Hungarian cowboys called "gulyas."

It spread through the Austro-Hungarian Empire

because the troops were fed goulash.

It's the obvious thing to feed troops,

very nourishing and very simple to make.

Caraway seeds, some paprika and lots of beef.

I think caraway is bar none the flavour of Germany and Austria.

I used to hate it. I think it's because my mother hated it.

"I can't bear caraway!"

Now I can't get enough of it.

It's in everything, it's the flavour of sauerkraut,

the flavour, with paprika, of goulash.

It's in the potatoes, it's in the bread, it's everywhere.

Paprika's the key to this dish,

and I'm going to use two types.

First, lots of sweet paprika,

but then some hot paprika too which gives it a subtle kick

and is my take on the dish.

Now some brown sugar.

It just needs a little bit of sweetness, not a lot,

and brown just to keep the colour nice and deep and dark.

Tomato puree, only a tiny bit.

Some of the recipes say never put any tomato in,

but I just like a tiny bit.

Some apple cider vinegar,

just a little bit of tartness in the background.

There we go, and now some salt.

About a teaspoon and a half.

Now, some water. That's all I need to do.

Except put a lid on it

and cook it at a low simmer for about an hour and a half.

Then I'll check it but it takes about one and three-quarter hours.

To go with the goulash is a little pasta dish called spaetzle.

It's very popular in Vienna.

You make a thick batter using flour, eggs and milk

and then gradually push it through a colander

over a pan of boiling water. The dough cooks almost straight away.

Well, it's done in two minutes.

Spaetzle means "little sparrows".

They look like little sparrows in the water!

And now you fry the little sparrows in butter.

There's a lovely main dish using spaetzle topped with fried onions

and grated Gruyere and baked in the oven for 20 minutes,

but now, here, a few rasps of nutmeg and serve.

I'm so hungry!

What's it like, Rick?

Oh...

It's my very last evening here, and of course it has to be Strauss.

Coming to Vienna without listening to a Strauss waltz

would be like going to Lancashire and not tasting a hotpot!

This is a sort of parade of Strauss's greatest hits.

Apparently, the Viennese turn their noses up at such performances,

preferring more less obvious renditions

played at the Grand Opera House and suchlike. Each to their own!

But I and my fellow concertgoers can't wait for it to start.

I like Vienna.

Maybe because it's still in love with the old traditional dishes

like potato dumplings, goulash and stuffed cabbage,

but if I had to choose just two things

I particularly love about this place,

number two would be the white wine they call Gemischer Satz - delish -

and number one, well, it has to be this one,

the golden and glorious Wiener schnitzel. Yummo!

That was indeed a brilliant long weekend made better by the music.

All that's left to say is good night, Vienna.

# Hey, Rick

# Where we going next weekend?

# Are we flying a few hours away

# For some delicious food, they say

# We can try dishes in Roma

# Or Barcelona

# For something more exotic go the spices of Morocco

# Yes, you can take your pick

# And even break the ice in Reykjavik

# So, Rick, make the booking

# Let's get cooking

# And get those taste buds going next weekend. #