OK, the time has come to name the winners of the Brettljause awards for 2023! Wait… isn’t it almost October 2024 outside? Right – I am hopelessly late, and while I could come up with a couple of half-convincing reasons for the delay of my goose awards, in this case, I have nothing to blame but my laziness. Though, considering that I customarily publish a post about the best Brettljausen after writing about the best geese… no, this would be a pathetic excuse.
Yes, I am lazy, and one other thing that makes me mad is the need to update my Top 5 page whenever a year rewards me with a particularly exceptional Brettljause. Checking and re-checking my ever-growing Excel sheet and manually moving items on the page to make sure that the front-runners appear in the correct order is not something I enjoy.
And this time, there is one Buschenschank that has really given me a lot of work. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the winner of the 2023’s Golden Brettl, Buschenschank Resch in West Styrian Deutschlandsberg! Members of the Kainz family, which owns this small location with a fantastic view over the town, are true maestros of the Brettljause preparation art. Not only are their Brettljausen delicious, enormous and extremely varied, but they are also skillfully and beautifully arranged. The tavern does not have a website, but maintains a presence on Instagram, and I strongly encourage you to take a look, for if having seen Resch’s cold cut plates you do not feel like buying a ticket to Deutschlandsberg immediately, you are not a real Brettljause fan.
As it comes to the update of the Top 5 page, Buschenschank Resch is now the 3rd top Brettljause location overall and for taste (sharing that third spot with two other Heurige), #1 in terms of size, and #2 in Styria (sharing with one other Buschenschank). For 2023, in addition to the Golden Brettl, it also wins in the taste, variety, authenticity and size categories.
The second and the third places this year go to Tyrol, the result of my extremely productive one-week visit to the ski village of Sölden. Some people believe that Tyrol, with its high mountains and green alpine meadows is where one gets the most authentic and best Brettljausen. Authentic – perhaps, but more often than not, Tyrolean Brettljausen are awfully basic. Like South Tyrolean Marenden, Brettljausen of Austrian Tyrol often contain only three ingredients, served with little more than a cucumber.
Not so were the Brettljausen of Annemaries Hühnersteign and Gampe Thaya. Located within walking distance of each other, these two restaurants excel in their own ways. Hühnersteign, the winner of the Silver Brettl, convinced me by the variety and quality of the ingredients, as well as by the little bonuses like spicy chutney and interesting herbs. Gampe Thaya, the winner of the third place, on the other hand, impressed by its picturesque location, fantastic ambience and service, tasty dried beef and a potato. Yes – this is one of the few (if not the only) locations I know that serve a Brettljause with a potato – and what a great idea it is! Annemaries Hühnersteign and Gampe Thaya now occupy #1 and #2 positions in the list of recommended Brettljause places in Tyrol.
Weingut und Buschenschank Repolusk on the South Styrian Wine Road, known to me from previous visits, served me another very competently arranged cold cuts platter, but even more captivated by its relaxing atmosphere and amazing views over Slovenia. So much, in fact, that I now declare it the fifth best Brettljause location in Austria in terms of atmosphere and service.
Gschwantners Mostbutt’n is a Mostheuriger that is not very far but appears extremely remote, being hidden in the middle of a forest at the end of a narrow winding road. Its Brettljause is very good, and it seems that the recent price hikes everywhere have not reached this secret place yet. It is the 2023’s winner in the “value” category.
None of the winners convinced my fans on Instagram, however. Instead, they gave the highest number of likes to Sonnenalm Ramsau, a slightly over-touristic, but very friendly restaurant that I had visited six years ago and therefore did not review this year. The Brettljause there was better than average, but my photos were probably even better.
Just to prove my point about Tyrolean Brettljausen above, the two worst ones of 2023 come from Tyrol. Rasthaus Timmelsjoch is located at the mountain pass where Austria and Italia meet, and serves food as poor as its surroundings are stunning. Gaislachalm, which is even closer to Sölden, is a pure tourist magnet for lazy (or elderly and sick) tourists. It serves a very industrial Brettljause at a location that cannot even be called beautiful. Neither of these two places can compare in their badness to the abysmal Heurigenschenke Wilhelm Busch, however, which, as I learned in 2023, has now closed forever. Though being the last person to be surprised by this closure (it is unbelievable that the restaurant survived even that long), I still feel a bit sad that this bastion of Viennese unfriendliness is no more.
So, this was my 2023: 40 Brettljausen (which is slightly more than in the year before) and one very clear winner. The report for 2024 will come soon (I promise), and from what I see in my Excel sheet so far, the winner may be a highly surprising one.
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