Goldfisch

Review

The larkfish

Photo: Heribert Corn First of all, let's correct a mistake: it wasn't the AMA that ran the Culinarium Österreich restaurant, now known as Primi (see Falter 49), but private individuals based on a concept that partly originated from AMA employees. So. One hardly dared to hope, but it seems that the small local culinary structure may not be lost after all. At least that's the impression you get when you look at the crowds streaming into the Markterei in the Alte Post, the queues at butcher Markus Dormayer's counter in the Marktwirtschaft or what people are prepared to do for good bread and exceptional vegetables. Supermarkets may not be destiny after all, but now fish is too. Fish is not an easy topic, enormous use of goods, enormous refrigeration logistics, great risk and very little courage on the part of the consumer ("because of the bones!"). Nevertheless, former marketing consultant Petra Goetz-Frisch and wine merchant Sebastian Slavicek fought for many months with the authorities and local residents to open their fish store and fish restaurant called Goldfisch in Lerchenfelder Straße. It opened for business last week and is truly enchanting. For example, because it looks good with its slate gray tables, the open kitchen and, of course, the centerpiece, the display case. In which - picturesquely illuminated - the rock mullet, oysters, sea bass and even the trout are of staggering beauty. But the goods are also really good, Goetz-Frisch and Slavicek do without the large assortment, instead getting some really fine things from where they are best: Trout from the Kalkalpen Nature Park, organic branzino from Irena Fonda from Piran (the best branzino breed in Europe), farmed caviar from Walter Grüll from Salzburg, scallops and a few beautiful Adriatic fish from Italian wholesalers, turbot and oysters from Eishken Estate. The menu is also small, fine and anything but outlandish: For a fresh, spicy Fine de Claire oyster you pay three euros, which is fair, a racy Belon comes to four, which is very fair, for the fat, creamy branded oyster from the Gillardeau house you pay five, that's just life.
The Lerchenfelder fish soup with saffron, not too much cream, deliciously prepared mussels, some smoked salmon and other fish is fun (€ 6.80), the tender roast beef with smoked carp cream is a very distinctive vitello tonnato variation (€ 12.90), the boiled octopus with rösti, deep-fried root vegetables and slightly too neutral spinach cream still lacked a bit of wit (€ 8.50).
And there was actually a couple at the next table who took the ten grams of Salzburg caviar with blini and vodka (€ 39.90). Summary: A pretty fish store that is also a pretty little fish restaurant that cooks small, pretty fish dishes. Goldfisch 8th, Lerchenfelder Str. 16 Tel. 0664/254 95 96 Tue-Fri 9.30-19 Sat 9.30-15 h

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