Being Different

Location:Dingelstedt 3
Website:http://www.dingelstedt3.at
Address:Dingelstedtgasse 3, 1150 Wien
Status:Open (last checked on 30 July 2019)
Eaten:Brettljause, two beers (Zwettler)

It is always an event to discover a new Brettljause-serving restaurant in Vienna, especially if that restaurant tries – and largely succeeds – to be different.

Appropriately named after the street it is located on, Dingelstedt 3 must be a relatively recent opening (I cannot imaging not noticing it, having visited the area quite a lot in the past) and is already quite popular, attracting a nice mixture of young and older people and offering dishes that look quite creative. The Brettljause is a case in point.

A thickly-cut Wurzelspeck that is mostly fat? Tick. A dark brown Grammelschmalz of weird taste? Tick. Sweet rather than salty pickled cucumbers? I’d never tasted them before, but Dingelstedt had them. There was a bit of sweet onion, too, and a pickled radish so strangely spiced that it tasted almost perfumed. The bread rolls were varied, very small, and extremely fresh, while the butter was salty, which is a real rarity in Austria. The Schweinsbraten was thinly cut and quite ordinary, but the mustard and the horseradish that I ate it with were stronger than usual and not at all industrial.

The only advice I want to give Dingelstedt is that if one strives to be different, a cheese stronger than the rather feeble Bergkäse would have been a better idea. And, of course, including bog-standard Handl’s Kaminwurzeln (available from every Billa or Spar) disguised as “Hartwurst” is a total no-no. Otherwise, the Brettljause was a very positive, albeit expensive, surprise.

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