Harvest

Review

Harvest 23

Marcus Westenberger, co-founder and former program director at the Ost-Klub, was in India at some point and discovered that vegetarian cuisine is not only good, but can also be completely normal and commonplace. An experience that is not really obvious in Vienna, even if the parents are vegetarians, as is the case with Westenberger, and even restaurateurs cannot do without meat dishes on the menu for the sake of the public. And because he lives opposite, he always had his eye on this pub on Karmeliterplatz, the former Eder, a traditional restaurant since 1956 and doomed to stylistic and culinary demise under various names over the past decades. Suddenly there was talk of selling it, and Westenberger seized the opportunity to slow down like an East German club and turn it into a veggie restaurant. It wasn't an easy road, he explains, because it was already extremely dirty and run-down and the fryers had left their smelly and tactile patina behind. So everything was removed, especially the false ceiling from the 1970s, a few white-painted sideboards for that Amsterdam feeling, subtle music and colorful pictures by Oliver Feistmantl, and the Grindbeisl became a not at all uncomfortable, airy and bright veggie café with the beautiful name Harvest. Westenberger doesn't want to limit himself stylistically, Asian, Mediterranean, Austrian, but he does when it comes to vegetables, which he sources from Adamah or Mario Berber at the Naschmarkt. Fine, but perhaps the only problem is that the food is not freshly cooked, which tends to rule out vegetable cuisine at a really high level. Instead, Harvest focuses on stews that are kept warm in rechauds. This wasn't a problem with a pleasantly spiced leek, celery and broccoli stew, for example, and even with a kind of vegetable rice it didn't really affect the performance. A vegetarian gröstl, on the other hand, made a somewhat dry impression, apart from the fact that tofu sausage is in any case a rejection of meat cuisine. The cucumber salad with feta was unexciting and well marinated, the leek soup a little unfresh by the end of the day. The dessert, a kind of chocolate crumble with nuts and pears, was much better than it looked. The price is based on a standard price and plate size, a small bowl of whatever comes to 3.30, a small plate to 4.40, a large plate to 6.60 euros. It's a little unclear why there's a not uninteresting selection of vodkas in the drinks fridge - it's probably a relic of the Ost-Klub. Summary: Vegetarian cuisine at a slightly higher level than you're used to in Vienna, good value and served in a pretty restaurant. Harvest 2, Karmeliterplatz 1, Tel. 0699/150 56 221, Wed-Sun 11.30-21.30 hrs

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