The Last Chance

With my previous experiences including one good goose, one disastrous goose and one creepy-looking goose, I am still wondering how Stuwer manages to keep on popping up as one of the top Martinigansl addresses in Vienna. That was one of the reasons why today I spontaneously decided to give this restaurant one last chance to change or confirm my earlier impressions, the other reason being that so late in December there is hardly any other restaurant to give a last chance to.

Stuwer serves a sous vide goose and is (rightfully) not ashamed of that. Thanks to the miracles of sous vide, the restaurant not only has one of longest (if not the longest) Gansl season in town, but also offers take-home goose portions that aspiring cooks can finalize at home with no particular risk of making a mess of them. During the COVID time, I had tried many take-home geese, and the sous vide ones generally worked out well despite my complete lack of cooking talent.

I don’t know if Stuwer buys its geese already vacuum-sealed and does the pre-cooking and vacuum-sealing itself, but with the exception of the very first goose I had at the restaurant in 2020, something goes very wrong in the process. (If you think it is my taste that had somehow changed since that first time, take a look at the photo of that goose #1  and compare it with the later photos.) Sous vide geese are expected to be tender and taste at if coming fresh out of an oven. Stuwer’s goose was tough, with the meat on the thigh lacking the normal texture. The meat was dense as if it had been pressed together by something super-heavy – steaks sometimes turn out like that if overcooked. A goose should not be undercooked, of course, but it needs juiciness, a decent amount of fat and a proper goose taste. Stuwer’s goose, on the other hand, had plenty of meat that was hard to cut (especially closer to the main bone), required an effort to chew and occasionally did not taste like the noble white bird at all. It also lacked salt and had almost no crispiness in the skin.

Plenty of jus was provided – and it was a great jus, having a faint flavor of berries and possibly wine – but it could not penetrate the dense meat, so was only useful for injecting a bit of taste into bland potato dumplings. The red cabbage was served lukewarm, and although I disliked that at first, later on I found the combination of warmer meat and colder cabbage more pleasant than the opposite. (I had burned my tongue too many times with super-hot cabbage this year.) Although the cabbage was not at all crunchy, it was a success, easily the best part of the dish.

Despite a somewhat cramped atmosphere, Stuwer is pleasant inside, having the mood of a real Beisl. The clientele is generally young(ish), bohemian (but not annoyingly so) and international; the service is no-fuss and friendly. I can believe that there are dishes that this restaurant does really well – it would not have been so popular otherwise. Unfortunately, goose is not one of them, and the only reason I may considered returning for another one is if someone I truly trust recommends it – and pays for my dinner.