Midi – Café & Bistrot

Review

French gymnastics

Photo: Heribert Corn Supposedly "strong is the new skinny", claims women's newspaper propaganda and influencers, who have now taken over this job of opinion manipulation. It's supposed to be, because if you want to be "strong", you have to provide your body with proteins, fiber, carbohydrates and fatty acids, formerly known as "food", and that can't be bad. At most, it can be a little bland and a little unpleasant, namely when once again, in good old Catholic penitent mentality, attention is paid only to the functionality of the diet and only some obscure superfoods are served. This need hardly be feared at the new restaurant of the City-Edelturnverein Holmes Place, because this is the Midi Café & Bistrot, a branch of the small French take-away on Hoher Markt that opened in autumn 2015. After the previous (very frequently changing) cafés in Holmes Place with their random Mediterranean-Asian superfood cuisines had somehow failed to make a particularly strong impression, they obviously thought, okay, so now something completely different, something with lots of butter, meat, cheese, wine and white bread, something French.
However, Guilhem Baribeaud and his partner Pessah Yampolsky don't go that hardcore French anyway, so no boiled offal, no ducks cooked in lard and no andouillette sausages filled with intestines and stomach (what a shame!And of course a few indispensable clichés à la quiche, tarte flambée, salad with chèvre chaud, and if something is not quite so French, such as the club sandwich, then it's just "Le Club sandwich" (which looked great at the next table, by the way).
Ratatouille with poached egg was unfortunately out, and of the two quiches, there was only the vegetarian version with walnuts, mountain cheese and apricot, which wasn't that great (€ 8.60), but the tabouleh is all the better for it. Pessah Yampolsky makes it a bit neo-Israeli, with mint and lots of pomegranate seeds, as well as fried melanzani and very good falafel, it looks pretty and tastes great (€ 8.60). And then there's bœuf bourguignon - really atypical for a fitness center restaurant - with a dark, beautiful sauce, plenty of bacon and mushrooms, delicious and quite reasonably priced for the portion size and beef quality (€ 12.60). A good way to get strong. Speaking of strong: the Bordeaux comes from the small family winery Baribeauds on the edge of Sauternes and is wonderfully uncomplicated to drink. Summary: a new restaurant in a fitness center with a somewhat unusual offer: French braised meat and Bordeaux. Midi Café & Bistrot 1, Wipplingerstr. 30 Tel. 0650/348 73 09 daily 8.30-22 h

More in French
Food & Drink in Vienna