Scandinavian restaurants are unfortunately not really a thing in Vienna. Years ago there was Home Café, an Icelandic place, which closed a while ago. Hemma, a Scandinavian restaurant with a focus on Swedish food, has been around for some time, but I never managed to give it a try. My experiences with Swedish and Icelandic food have been more than positive, therefore it was high time to change that.
Hemma – Bar & Restaurant @Vienna
The menu is short, especially as the dishes from the set menu are not available à la carte, which does not leave a lot to choose from. Even the cocktail list is longer than the food menu, and it gets quite difficult for vegetarians with exactly one soup, one starter, and one main dish. This can be a good thing if the available dish is delicious. As it turned out, this was not the case.
dining room @Hemma
The first thing I noticed was that, unlike in Scandinavia, water is not automatically brought to the table. Instead, upon ordering it, we were asked if we preferred still or sparkling. Of course we only wanted some tap water, but it took a while for the host to bring a carafe to our table. Meanwhile, after we had all ordered a main course, we were served bread and herbal butter, which later appeared as a cover charge on the bill.
The white bread was beyond bland, and the herbal butter had not seen any salt either. As there was no salt on the table, we had to retrieve some salt flakes from the serving board to get at least a bit of flavour going. I really could have done without it, as this was nothing but empty calories.
bread and butter @Hemma
The menu has exactly one fish dish on offer, a slice of salmon fillet. My preferred choice of cod could only be ordered as part of the set menu. But maybe I was lucky anyway, because someone else later ordered the cod and the smell of it wafted through the whole restaurant. Not really a good sign. So instead of fish I got the meatballs, a classic Swedish dish as we all know from Ikea, served with brown sauce, mashed potatoes, and cucumber salad. It arrived all on one plate, as is customary.
meatballs with brown sauce @Hemma
It looked delicious, with creamy mash and plenty of sauce, just the way I like it. The sauce was indeed tremendous, a brown butter sauce, rich and full of flavour. The mash had enough butter to make it indulgent, yet it was not too soft and worked perfectly with the sauce. The cucumber salad brought some much needed acidity, and the cranberry jam added a sweet note. Everything was delicious except for the meatballs. These were hard, really difficult to cut, and had as much flavour as a piece of cardboard. The ones from Ikea taste as if they are from a Michelin starred restaurant compared to these. Best to avoid!
The only vegetarian main dish, a leek risotto with green peas and feta, did not fare much better. It seemed to be made with the wrong rice, long grain instead of short grain, very wet and with a mushy appearance. It does not bode well when a risotto is topped with more feta than appropriate. If I want to eat congee, I will seek out an Asian restaurant.
leek risotto @Hemma
The only truly good dish, actually a great one, was the salmon fillet with celeriac white wine puree, green peas, and mushrooms. The salmon arrived without any odour, the celeriac cream was silky and smooth, and the fish had the perfect texture, slightly glassy in the centre, still very juicy, with its skin roasted to perfection. Why could not every dish be like this?
roasted salmon filet @Hemma
Service was friendly and not without Nordic charm, therefore a bit frosty and with little blarney. But whatever the tone, it would not have helped, as the food made no great impression. It is certainly not a place I will visit again. Too great was my disappointment with the köttbullar at Hemma. Yours, Pollybert
Hemma – Bar & Restaurant
1010 Wien, Landesgerichtsstrasse 12
Tel: +43 699 11347536
Email: book@hemmawien.at
Tue-Sat: 17:00-23:00
https://www.hemmawien.at/
