Stockerhütte proved what a lovely place it could be in the final 10 minutes of my stay there. For the preceding half an hour, it was mainly a pain in the butt. That was certainly not this small hut’s fault; it was just that a huge group of visitors (with kids) had booked four or five tables for some sort of a gathering. Catering for such a crowd must have put an enormous strain on the hut’s modest kitchen. By the time I arrived, the party was ending, and the farewells were unbelievably long and painful. It seemed that every member of a departing family had to embrace each of the remaining visitors at least once, and some of the final conversations went for as long as 15 minutes. All next to the table where I was eating my Brettljause and praying that the serving lady would notice my empty beer bottle and bring me a new one. The lady, however, was too busy accepting the payments, since each person – undoubtedly to annoy me – had decided to pay the bill separately.
Missing beer and annoying neighbors aside, I was enjoying the Brettljause tremendously. Looking and tasting amazingly authentic, it contained an entire Hauswurst, two very thick slices of Speck, a Verhackert spread, a thick slice of Glundner cheese and several thick slices of “normal” but quite strong cheeses. The lack of fork annoyed me at first, but eventually I learned to help myself with a knife, thought I admit that Stockerhütte could have easily provided me with a sharper one.
The Glundner cheese has always been to me some kind of a joke from the remarkably unfunny Villacher Fasching. It looks awful, it has no taste, and its only reason for existence must be Carinthia’s desire to make something unique. Perhaps they thought it could compensate for the lack of taste in the horseradish, which – I am starting to think – only has taste when served in Styria. However, all the other ingredients were top-notch. I started with the Verhackert, and it was much spicier than I remember from the other places. With a bit of fresh onion on the top, it was perfect. The two types of Speck required quite a lot of chewing (a sharper knife would have allowed me to cut off thinner pieces and thus spare the effort), but the taste was absolutely fantastic. To my liking, they were better than many Specks of South Tyrol, and that means something.
The beer in bottles was something of a letdown, but on the other hand, I suspect that many restaurants pour beer out of bottles anyway, so at least Stockerhütte was transparent in that respect. Once the crowds were gone, I could appreciate the animals the hut owns: pigs, rabbits, llamas (which one can hire and walk with), geese and quails, whose eggs are available for purchase. Despite a parking place nearby and the closeness to the village of Mallnitz, Stockerhütte is still a very authentic place with a great Brettljause and is totally worth a visit.
P.S. Incidentally, this is the 600th Brettljause that I have reviewed on this site. I could not have chosen a better location to celebrate this occasion!
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