I love the restaurant week in Vienna. I mean what’s not to love? A menu for a fixed price and most high-class restaurants are participating. And all of them want to shine and entice new clients. After my disappointment with the vegetarian high flyer Tian I prefer a safe bet. Why spend a lot of money when with a fraction of the cost I can already test the waters. Then, if it’s worth it, I am all for going back.
During the last restaurant week I was tested Das Schick, which is on the roof of the Hotel am Parkring and offers Austrian – Spanish fusion cuisine. The location is great and the view even better. The design and the furniture of the room don’t work though. When was this styled the last time? In the ’80s?
dining room @Das Schick
But I am here to talk about the food so let’s get on with it. We opted for the 4-course meal with accompanying wine. The amuse gueule with which we started was already auspicious. From left to right: strawberry gazpacho, deep-fried octopus chorizo balls and beef tartar on a pepper leaf and with a cut egg yolk. The gazpacho especially was a very pleasant surprise. It fruit was right there but the savory soup never left the gazpacho territory. Nice! The little deep-fried balls vanished in a flash as was the tartar. Only that the tartar was a bland. Maybe we should have eaten it first?
amuse gueule @Das Schick
Next up was a small piece of yellow tail tuna, seared on the outside, with sesame, avocado ice cream, dollops of avocado cream and apricots. I thoroughly enjoyed the combination and found it worked very well in combination. The tartness of the apricot set off nicely the tuna and avocado flavors. Maybe the ice cream was too cold. But it usually is. My friend was on the other hand found the apricot too sweet and didn’t eat it in combination with the tuna. She thought it ruined the taste.
tuna filet with avocado ice cream and apricots @Das Schick
Our second course was one small scallop served in a large shell (we are back in the ’80s with the design again). The scallop sat on top of a creamy piece of black pudding, next to super tart apple balls, yuzu caviar and on apple and wine foam. The whole thing was covered by a black pudding sheet. If that sounds as if a lot was happening, that’s correct. And that is also how it tasted. The scallop was perfectly seared but the light taste of the sea vanished next to the intense flavor of the black pudding. Overpowering would I call it. Also the apples were sour and didn’t help with the flavors. The scalloped tasted best when just eaten with the black pudding paper on top. That really worked!
scallop with black pudding and apple @Das Schick
The main course was veal in form of filet, head and cheeks. When the dish was served my friend said it smelled like a swimming pool. I couldn’t really agree with the pool smell but of course the truffle has its own aroma. The veal was served with mashed peas, some kind of pea brioche, porcini and two small dumplings stuffed with goat cheese. And all of it was covered in truffle crumbs. The meat in all its forms was excellent, cooked to perfection, juicy and tender.
The mashed peas enhanced the subtle taste of the veal while the fluffy brioche did nothing for it. Now the porcini on the other hand tasted watery, as if they had been soaked for hours (either washed or by any chance they were dried ones). The dumplings tasted as if they had been stuffed with mozzarella, I couldn’t detect any hint of the promised goat cheese. Also not sure if the truffle increased the overall performance of the dish.
veal filet with mashed peas, goat cheese dumplings and black truffle @Das Schick
The last dish of the evening was of course dessert. It was introduced as chocolate brownie with cherry sorbet and a cherry with hazelnut inside instead of the pit. The brownie turned out to be chocolate cake with mousse on top and a boring sorbet.
chocolate mousse cake with cherry sorbet @Das Schick
And herein lay the problem. The girl who served the dessert also served the wine. She was really friendly but had no clue what she was doing. The first wine was a “Grüner Veltliner Bruch”. I am not a wine aficionado. But I know what I like and I am interested in new things. So I knew that “Grüner Veltliner” referred to the grape but wasn’t sure what “Bruch” meant. She told us it’s like a “Reserve“. Which was totally untrue because it stands for the location of the vineyard. in this case steep hillside.
The red wine they served with the veal was sour. A bottle of it costs in the supermarket about seven Euro. We got that charged per glass. And they knew that they were serving sh*t because right away they offered something else. But the chuzpe to even try! To do that in restaurant that has really respectable reviews from distinguished companies (Gault Millau, Falstaff). Sorry, that doesn’t work for me! Definitely will not be back to this one. Yours, Pollybert
Das Schick
1010 Wien, Am Parkring 12
Tel: +43 1 514 80 417
Email: restaurant-das-schick@schick-hotels.com
Mon-Fri: 12:00-3:00, 18:00-22:30, Sat, sun and holidays: 18:00-22:30
https://www.schick-hotels.com/en/restaurant-das-schick/restaurant-vienna-view.html
