Motto Brot

Review

Bernd & the bread

In 1991, Bernd Schlacher had Vienna's first cool trendy bar, Motto, where you could still get something decent to eat after midnight; with Halle 2001, he had the first restaurant in the young Museumsquartier and with Motto am Fluss, something that Vienna didn't have until 2010, namely a two-storey restaurant on the waterfront that was remarkable both inside and in terms of architecture. But he wasn't the first with his luxury bakery Motto Brot, which opened last week! Gragger, Paremi and Öfferl were there earlier! Eh, except that Motto am Fluss already had a small store ten years ago, where you could buy crispy designer bread with a name, Joseph or something, for the first time ... Let's be clear: bread is important to Bernd Schlacher, if he has good bread, butter and a glass of water, he doesn't need anything else, he says (you don't have to take it too seriously ...). And that's why, during the last lockdown, he and Barbara van Melle - the former TV presenter and chairwoman of Slow Food Vienna has been running Vienna's first flour bakery, the Kruste & Krume bread baking studio and organizing the bread festival of the same name since 2018 - designed Motto Brot and housed it in the former Hotel Kummer, which is set to open as a Motto Hotel next year: a picturesque bread boutique like something out of a movie with Audrey Tautou, where breads adorn the displays that look so insanely crusty that you can't help but queue up. Which, by the way, can take a while at the moment, firstly because new sourdough bread bakeries have been making people form queues in front of them for ten years now, and secondly because everyone who enters the Motto Brot naturally wants to have every single baked good on offer explained to them in detail. But that was no different with Gragger, Joseph and Öfferl. What can we say, the breads - which are baked at Bernd Schlacher's Motto Catering headquarters in the Austria Center - are great. Old grains, mainly organic, long dough, some new loaf shapes, such as the "Couronne", a bread wreath that head baker Claudio Perrando bakes differently every month, currently made from wholemeal wheat with pumpkin puree and chia seeds. The baguette is as sharp as a lance and shockingly good (€ 3.90), the sweet things are also great, brioche for example, somehow different, somehow better (€ 2.80). It's a little disappointing that the filled sandwiches are exactly what everyone else is doing anyway: Weckerl with cream cheese and good spiced pumpkin (€ 4.90) or a short version of the great baguette with Thum ham, horseradish and gherkins (€ 5.70). Maybe it will come. Just like the Schanigarten in spring. Summary: Vienna finally has a bakery again where you have to queue. Motto Brot 6, Mariahilfer Straße 71A, Tel. 01/581 44 00, daily 7 am - 7 pm,

More in Confectionery, Bakery
Food & Drink in Vienna