By Joseph L. Garcia, Senior Reporter

WHILE Sobrino de Botin (founded 1725) might hold the distinction of being the Oldest Restaurant in the World in the Guinness World Records, medieval scholar Alcuin would like a word.

Alcuin, who served in Charlemagne’s court, mentioned St. Peter’s Stiftskeller (“stiftskeller” was a word for a monastery’s wine cellar, which it had been originally) in writing back in 803 — no typos, just a three-numeral year. During our visit to St. Peter’s in Salzburg’s St. Peter’s Abbey on Oct. 13, our server knowingly smiled when we tried to argue about Sobrino de Botin’s age, and simply handed us a flyer detailing the restaurant’s history. It does mention that they’ve been around for 1,200 years: “Our restaurant is therefore considered the oldest inn in Europe,” it says quite authoritatively. The monastery that contains it was founded in 696.

Perhaps the confusion lies in the fact that monasteries then did not charge for food, and accepted and served visitors for free out of Christian charity and piety. The restaurant’s list of visitors is legendary (if it is true). “Faust knows it to be a place of quality,” the restaurant’s flyer says loftily — Faust as in the legendary German figure who gave his name to the word “Faustian” after the myth that he had sold his soul to the devil. The restaurant places his visit in 1510. Christopher Columbus and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are said to have been guests as well, while Michael Haydn, composer Joseph Haydn’s younger, less famous brother, lived at the inn in 1763.

Another source of confusion for the restaurant’s true age is the pauses in its operation, along with its changes of ownership and function according to regime changes, and the natural flow of business (Sobrino de Botin, on the other hand, has been in continuous operation since it opened and supposedly, the flame in its oven has never been put out). For example, French troops occupied the building in 1809 during the Napoleonic wars (possibly pausing operations). In 1992, businessman Claus Haslauer and his wife Veronika took over the lease of St. Peter’s Stiftskeller and renamed it St. Peter’s Stiftskulinarium in 2017.

It’s quite hard to find: our driver from a previous The Sound of Music tour (which was filmed in Salzburg; which we will not discuss, because we led the singing during the tour) dropped us off by an entrance and told us to go through two arches and turn right. We found it through a gaggle of tourists taking pictures of the sign, with two crossing keys, boasting of the restaurant’s 803 founding. Stone and rock surround the restaurant, emphasizing its medieval origins, but contemporary art dots the place, making one aware of the present year.

The restaurant seats more than 600, in a series of various rooms (it has a Baroque Hall, built in 1903, where Mozart concerts are performed at dinner). Despite coming an hour early for our 2 p.m. reservation, we were seated quite promptly in a room with terracotta floors, ancient wooden beams and panels (which were now transformed into booths), and hunting trophies like deer skulls. The place was crowded on our Sunday visit, with well-dressed Salzburg seniors (possibly after mass; the city is still quite Catholic) sharing space with tourists in various dress (a familiar scene throughout Austria). The restaurant is divided into two concepts — Achthundert Drei (that’s 803 in English) which serves “international fine-dining cuisine”; and Peter, which serves Austrian and Mediterranean specialties.

Peter’s menu is surprisingly contemporary, with dishes like ceviche and exotic ingredients like Kaffir lime leaf (we’re sure those weren’t around when the monks were in charge). We have those at home, so we opted for the Austrian specialties. Mamma ordered the Pete’s Roast Beef with Onions (€37.90) with bacon beans and mashed potatoes. We got the Tafelspitz (€31.90), a traditional Austrian dish of boiled organic Salzburg beef, with creamed spinach, apple horseradish, and chive sauce on the side. We also got the Homemade Boiled Beef Soup (€10.90), with porcini mushroom dumplings, root vegetables, beech mushrooms, and chives.

Our server offered us bread, at €6, but we’d gladly pay for it over and over again. The bread — brown, chewy, dense, and spongy — tasted like it came out of a fairy tale. The butter, however, whipped and with a flavor of toffee (it was a salted caramel butter), firmly placed it in our time.

Mamma gave me a taste of her roast beef: it was in chunky red wine sauce and topped with crispy fried onions. The meat was a bit tough, but its flavor is yet to be matched. The Boiled Beef Soup, as a traditional Austrian dish, can be found in most homes and restaurants (we had had it twice before, at the museum restaurants at the Kunsthistorisches and the Schönbrunn Palace — frankly, its a less tasty nilaga, which means we’ve had it several times at home). St. Peter’s version was slightly sweeter than the previous versions we tasted, from the generous use of onions and herbs. The root vegetables (carrots and radish are our guesses) were finely cut into strips as a touch of finesse.

Now the Tafeslpitz — that was something. We saw three other tables (with the well-dressed seniors) order it as well, and we watched the show with which it was presented. When it was our turn, it came in a copper pan, and with the various sauces and accoutrements, it was a visual spectacle of abundance. The server also makes it a show, smearing the plate with the spinach on one side, and horseradish on the other. It came with a broth that was basically the soup from earlier, but the boiled beef, tender and yielding, must have come from a prized cow because of its supreme flavor. It’s excellent for cold days (and there are many in Austria). We could feel the workhorse quality of the dish, meant to fortify the insides for work and cold; the pleasure is a bonus. While the server took away the leftover broth from the other tables, we asked for her to leave ours, because what can we say? We like soup.

If you’re used to more exciting flavors, the food may not stand out too much — but who says we came here for the food? The sums aren’t too princely, and there are few places in the world where you can eat in a place older than the concept of nationhood itself. Empires have fallen and risen; St. Peter’s still stands.

By Joseph L. Garcia, Senior Reporter

THE Austro-Hungarian Empire has been gone for more than 100 years, but some vestiges of its greatness still lie in its restaurants. Austria’s contributions to cuisine are hard to ignore: a lot of famous French pastries, collectively called Viennoserie, take the category’s name from Austria’s capital; not to mention popularizing coffee culture in Europe. As for Hungary, it added much-needed spice to the culinary map, thanks to its widespread use of paprika.

THE OLDEST COFFEE HOUSE IN VIENNA
Café Frauenhuber is supposed to be Vienna’s oldest coffee house, standing since 1824. The building is much older, though: a plaque outside states that in 1788, Franz Jahn, personal chef of the Empress Maria Theresa, had founded a restaurant there. Mozart and Beethoven both performed there, in 1788 and 1797, respectively. And before that, it was a bathhouse (according to a perfumer we met there for coffee).

As we sat among the velvet damask seats, parquet floors, and crystal chandeliers, a white tablecloth was whipped out and folded for us by the server. Among the guests were several tired-looking people in black tie (we guessed that they were performers in the various classical concerts all across the city), sharing space with curious tourists in jeans.

On our first visit, we had their Viennese Chocolate, with rum and whipped cream, and it left us almost half-asleep. A second visit bade us to order their goulash, with beef and potatoes, with a Kaisersimmel roll. Filling and intriguingly spicy, the meal and the accompanying aura of history cost €9.10.

We also had Vienna’s most famous dish, the Wiener Schnitzel: veal pounded and fried in batter until it turns crispy. We learned that day that we liked pork better than veal, and we paid €28.90 to find out.

MCDONALD’S — A MODERN EMPIRE
Ha! Bet you weren’t expecting that. The world’s largest fast-food chain, spreading across 100 countries, has unique items across its markets. The McDonald’s in Vienna has the Steakhouse Classic and the Bacon Hamburger Royal with Cheese. Well, it’s hard to distinguish one from the other, but this is what we can say: The beef patties are large, just a few inches away from becoming the size of my own face, and are of an excellent quality. At fast-food prices (neither cost more than €6), they can stand toe-to-toe with any “gourmet” burger here at home (which might sell for twice the price).

The buns are of such excellent texture you’d think they wore makeup, not to mention the wide variety of sauces for dipping fries (we counted curry, Hot Devil spicy sauce, and real Honey Mustard; among others). Suddenly, ketchup in sachets just won’t do anymore.

A TALE OF TWO SACHERTORTES
One of Vienna’s most famous cakes, it was invented by Franz Sacher in 1832, supposedly for politician Prince Metternich. Today, it’s a chocolate cake with apricot jam between its layers, covered in dark chocolate icing, and served with whipped cream.

You’re probably waiting for us to say that we tried it in Hotel Sacher, the luxury hotel founded by Franz Sacher’s son. Nope: the long lines and the expensive reservation fees put us off. Instead, we tried it at Kurkonditorei Oberlaa, a popular chain in Austria (one of its flagship locations happened to be across the street from our hotel) and at Demel, a pastry shop founded in 1786 and supplier to the Viennese Imperial court. Demel also faced a legal battle with the aforementioned Hotel Sacher due to its own claims as the origin of the Sachertorte (it was settled out of court).

The Sachertorte at Oberlaa had a sugary chocolate shell and was light and refined. Demel also had long lines, thanks to its reputation and its fame with the Instagram crowd. They had a special window for coffee orders and Kaiserschmarrn, a sweetened pancake supposedly a favorite of Emperor Franz Joseph I; customers took pictures as soon as the paper cone containing them popped out of the window.

Compared to the cake at Oberlaa, Demel’s version had a milder and more well-rounded chocolate flavor and was more moist and dense. Oberlaa’s was drier, but had a more intense flavor. We ordered Franziskaner coffees at both restaurants (a sister of the Cappucino, which also takes its name from monks’ habits, of a different order): espresso and milk, topped off with generous amounts of whipped cream. Hats off to Demel, their coffee was richer and creamier.

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CAFé IN THE WORLD
We had a late lunch in what is supposedly the “most beautiful café in the world,” Budapest’s New York Café.

Once populated by the most eminent Hungarian writers of its day, it opened in 1894. World War II halted its operations, and with its 1954 reopening lacked its previous luster. It was restored in 2006 to its former glory, and in 2011, it was bestowed its Most Beautiful award by U City Guide, then again in 2012. Instagram helped retain its reputation through the decades.

Built in an eclectic Italian Renaissance-style, it also had elements of Baroque and Belle Epoque as well. Gilding, marble, bronze, and crystal made their way with the place, and we might also add that almost all the servers had a movie-star beauty to them, emphasized by their formal uniforms.

A string quartet played as we sipped Hungarian goulash (more complex than its Austrian counterpart), which had a fresher, more herbaceous flavor than the goulash from the humbler restaurant we visited earlier in the day. We were only at the smaller restaurant because it was in a mansion sequestered by the previous communist regime from our aristocratic tour guide’s family.

We followed that with Chicken Paprikash, a Hungarian stew (the main stars are in the name). Spicy, perfectly tender; the accompanying spaetzle was perfectly moist and soft and was delightful tossed in the paprika sauce.

There were long lines here as well (eight groups were ahead of us when we arrived after the lunch rush, but we were luckily rushed ahead to the first two slots; the line kept growing as the afternoon wore on), and the food was expensive. Still, it’s not easy to put a price on the glimmer in one’s eye when you’re transported to another, more beautiful world.