One of the most interesting breakfast I had this year was at Karl & Otto. Actually a night club called Club U from Wednesday to Saturday Karl & Otto started to offer breakfast on the weekend from February on. I loved it when I visited this new spot shortly after it opened. So when I needed a place to meet friends before Christmas I suggested it.
What was immediately obvious, Karl & Otto is hard to find, even for the locals. Although I did my utmost to explain that it’s best to arrive by U4, get off at metro station Karlsplatz and take the exit Resselpark, then just up the escalator and voila, here it is. But even standing in front of it did not help some. Which I don’t understand since there is nothing else around. But it does look quite inconspicuous, as you can see in my last post.
The service was as charming as I remembered it. An astonishing feat since our server was already awake for 36 hours. This is after all a club, something we noticed as well when we ordered a Gin&Tonic to share. Unfortunately the Tonic water had sold out and on that Sunday morning only Bitter Lemon was available. One needs to be flexible, so Gin&Bitter Lemon it was.
Even though the mini drink was not on the menu, it was not a problem to get it to share and it was served right away in two glasses. I recommended the ‘Avocado Mash’ I had last time with an extra fried egg, but ordered ‘Ottos Dirty Favorite‘ for myself, which is a bagel with a cheesy omelette, cream cheese, avocado, salad, and Siracha mayo.
The portion was generous and the filling tasty. The salad was dressed and the omelette had a great cheesy flavor. The only problem was the bagel, but maybe that’s just me. The Austrian bagels, unlike the ones I ate in Canada, are a lot chewier and denser than you would expect. Maybe it is because bread here has a lot more body than overseas, where most of the bread consists of air. In any case that bagel was really hard to cut with the blunt knife you get for breakfast. Also I only ate the bottom half, it was more than enough. I assume with a little bit of toasting this dish can be elevated to greatness!
The ‘Avocado Mash’ was again a hit. I think the fried egg is the perfect addition to this breakfast. The other breakfast dish we ordered was ‘Karl Likes It Hard‘, which is a slice of sourdough bread with cream cheese, ham, mustard with dill, hard boiled eggs, horse radish cream, radish, and chive. It looked more like a glorified sandwich and since I heard no complaints it must have been good. In the end it is really nothing special, even though it had been pimped.
I am still happy with Karl & Otto, it’s a really nice addition to the breakfast scene. I love that it is unpretentious and the service was again lovely. It might have lost a bit of its luster, due to the chewy bagel and the boring ham sandwich. Next time I have to come in summer, I want to sit outside the old Otto Wagner building and see the traffic rush by. Maybe it feels different than experiencing the metro rumbling beneath one. Yours, Pollybert
Café Karl & Otto
1010 Wien, Karlsplatz Obj. U26 (Otto Wagner Pavillon)
Tel: +43 1 5754166646
Email: hallo@karl-otto.cafe
Fri-Sat: 09:30-17:00, Sun. 09:30-16:00
https://www.instagram.com/clubu.karlundotto/