Imperial

Styraian Almochse with parsnip sauce (serves four)

Almochse is young mountain beef, not fully matured, but no longer veal

INGREDIENTS

500g top shin of beef

500g rump

350g mirepoix (carrot, celery, celeriac and turnip)

4 or 5 juniper berries

Bouquet garni

Salt

400g well-hung, trimmed fillet steak

3/4 litre seasoned single consommé [or beef broth from cooking the rump and shin]

For the sauce

50g parsnip brunoise

80g diced Charlotte potatoes

50g butter

1/2 litre stock from the above preparation

2dl sour cream

Salt and pepper

30g chilled butter

Hollandaise sauce

METHOD

Put the shin, rump and mirepoix in a pan. Cover with water. Add juniper berries and bouquet garni. Boil, skim and add salt. Simmer until tender (about two hours). Reserve 3/4 litre of broth. Put it in a clean pan, boil and add the fillet. Reduce the temperature to 80ºC, cover with foil and simmer on the side of the range till tender, but still pink.

Sweat the parsnip and potato in butter until tender. Add stock from the beef fillet. Simmer until done, liquidise and sieve. Add the sour cream. Check seasoning, bring to boiling point and whisk in the butter.

Spoon a little hollandaise over the rump (and glaze if you like). Serve the shin and the fillet warm with piping hot parsnip sauce.

"STEIRERECK is Austria's best restaurant," declares the doorman at Vienna's Kaiserin Elisabeth hotel. The Michelin guide thinks so too - it's the only restaurant in Austria to have two stars, and there aren't any with three stars.

It's certainly one of the city's most popular restaurants, not least because of its relatively modest prices for the level of cooking. "We get into trouble sometimes with our competitors, they are always saying we are too cheap," laughs head chef Helmut ôsterreicher. At Sch395 (£20) for the set lunch, they have a point. So it goes without saying that if you want to eat here, you should plan ahead.

"Though not too far ahead," he says. "We're not the kind of restaurant that wants to be so on top that no one can get a table."

Steirereck is on Vienna's east side, occupying a corner plot at the end of a line of grand mansions on the busy Rasumofskygasse. "We like to think we are an extension of the living room," says ôsterreicher, albeit a rather grand one, with its huge palms, urns full of fresh lilies, and Doric columns that dwarf the room. Or rooms, to be exact. There are four different parts to the restaurant, each with its own character and ambience. The most popular seats are in the conservatory that juts out over the street. It's stuffed with various foliage, which obscures the view of parked cars, and allows a glimpse of the Danube beyond.

Next is roast lobster with orange and kohlrabi (1995 Grauburgunder Tement Berghausen) or a crispy pike perch with vinegar vegetables (1997 Sauvignon Blanc Golser Spiegel from Hans Nittnaus). Then comes roasted lamb in a honey and thyme sauce (1995 Blaufr„nkisch from Hofzeim) or half a pigeon on parsnip vegetables (1997 Zweigelt from Pitnauer); and if you can manage it, a selection of herb sorbets or a selection of cheeses. Cheeses are matched by cheese sommelier Herbert Schmidt with a glass of 1995 ChÆ'teau Le Bonnart from Graves.

For dessert, diners choose from an iced cinnamon parfait with apple sauce, a lemon grass pastry with raspberries, or a warm Schilcher pear and pumpkin seed ice-cream. All three are paired with a 1995 Ruster Ausbruch from Herbert Triebaumer.

For an extra Sch560 (£27), there's a matching wines-by-the-glass menu, put together by sommelier Adolf Schmidt (Herbert's brother), which many diners opt for. The wine cellar is famous, attracting an international following, with a serious line-up of wines from Germany, France, Spain, California and, of course, the country's own top producers.

Diners who prefer a lighter option turn up at 10am for the daily brunch menu, which runs until noon. Steirereck doesn't open at the weekend, so ôsterreicher makes full use of his 16-strong brigade. A favourite dish is an Austrian staple, beuschl. It's not for the faint-hearted. Beuschl is a thick soup of calf's heart and lung. The meat is sliced into fine strips and simmered in a paprika gravy, which has had a generous dash of Riesling or Grner Veltliner added to it.

Beef is the nation's favourite meat and whereas the British roast it, the Austrians prefer to boil it. Tafelspitz (from the rump end) is the best known dish, and one of the most popular at Steirereck, using beef from Styria in the south.

For classic Tafelspitz, the meat is simmered gently for two to three hours (depending on the cut), then served in a copper pot with its cooking broth, a handful of vegetables and a couple of thick sections of marrow bone. The broth is quaffed first with the marrow, which the diner spreads thickly on pieces of lightly toasted rye bread. The meat is eaten next with two separate sauces. One is a chive mayonnaise, the other is apple and horseradish.

On joining Steirereck in 1978, when it was little more than an upmarket beisl (the Viennese name for a cross between a pub and a café), ôsterreicher was presented with quite a task. "We wanted to belong to the world of gastronomy," says Heinz Reitbauer whose family have owned Steirereck since 1970. And ôsterreicher, having done the rounds in Vienna's hotel kitchens and a three-year stint in the five-star Hotel Sacher, was the man to do it.

"We did it step by step," says Reitbauer. "Helmut launched himself into the new task with great fervour. Recognition followed soon after." The first Michelin star appeared, and other awards followed. As well as the two stars, he has a 19 out of 20 rating in the Paris-based Gault-Millau guide.

ôsterreicher's food is a twist on the traditional. "Our food is basically Austrian Styrian," he says. "We follow the classic local kitchen, but allow ourselves international influences."

The Austrian kitchen, however, is not so simple. Once a part of the Habsburg empire, which encompassed territories from Alsace, Bohemia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Hungary and Spain to Burgundy and more, Austria draws on many influences in its cuisine. UK-based Austrian food writer Gretel Beer sums it up rather poetically in Austrian Cooking: "It knows of the fiery spices of Hungary and the elegance of French cuisine. It derives much of its strength from Moravia, and much of its daring from Poland." A mishmash, in other words.

ôsterreicher is particularly fond of "exotic spices" such as ginger, cardamom and lemon grass. The cardamom, for example, is used to scent a fresh cherry chutney that is served alongside venison. Ginger is used in some of his lobster dishes. "Though not too much, you must taste the lobster," he says, adding that ginger is also used in some lamb dishes. "But I don't want to emphasise the Oriental or exotic. These are just background flavour."

"Our main philosophy when creating a dish is to experience things on your palate that keep you wide awake, through all the different courses," he says.

ôsterreicher never reverts to the first person. "It's all about teamwork," he says. "We pool all our information. Each chef de partie is encouraged to contribute, to bring something new to each dish, but not with too much pressure."

He's obviously doing something right. Most of his brigade have been with him for more than six years, some for eight years or more. Is this slow staff turnover normal for Vienna? "No. But it's a miracle for me," he says. "Though I do tend to engage chefs who are married and like to settle down in Vienna, chefs who don't have the urge to go outside the city or even the country. Of course, we do have chefs that stay for six months or so, but I know they will move on and they are not the pillars of the kitchen." n

Steirereck, Rasumofskygasse 2, 1030 Vienna, Austria. Tel: 00 43 1 222 713 3168