Wiener Würstelstand

Review

Hot dog Friedensreich

In the fall of 2018, Mike Lanner, one of the dazzling figures in Vienna's start-up scene, asked me if I believed in the future of the sausage stand. Because he had an idea. No, I said, because lots of people already had that idea and they all disappeared silently into nowhere. Recently, my colleague Matzinger sent me a breathless message from someone who claimed that sausage stands were the new vegan and asked if I shared this opinion. No, I write back, because with the three or four existing hype stalls, the potential of hipsters paying seven euros for vegan organic sausage and hand-fermented radish kimchi has been amply exhausted. I could be wrong, because Lanner's "Wiener Wü" in front of the Pfeilheim went off like a jet rocket. The combination of Bosna with a claim to originality, artisan organic sausages, the cult Salzburg beer from the Mülln monastery, which is otherwise unavailable in Vienna, and a completely new sausage stand attitude - hip instead of shuffling - managed to turn the trend around. A few more then came: Alles Wurscht, the Speisekammer, the somewhat erratic edition in Porzellangasse and, last but not least, the vegan sausage stand Eh Wurst. And finally Lukas Mraz, one of the best chefs in the country and a quirky icon of the indie food scene: Vienna Tourism made a hip YouTube video with him that follows him as he rides around five of his favorite stands on his cargo bike. The video is great, and since then all the trend scouts have been proclaiming the age of the sausage stand. You don't have to go crazy now, after all, the sausage stand is still the gastronomy segment with the sharpest decline. But the new stand that Lanner and Sengl have just opened in Spittelau could be a good example of the sausage stand 2.0: The Bologna Wü, for example, with fried fennel salsiccia, rocket, olive tapenade and Jumi raclette, the finest (€ 7.40). It is served with wafer-thin slices of raw sausage, deep-fried into obscure curls, in the "dirty" version with horseradish mayo, salsa verde, dukkah and (if available) Pinzgauer Schottkas (€ 5.20), super, or homemade sauerkraut, which was just as sold out as the lamb sausages after plenty of media coverage. Never mind, because - and watch out, here it comes - they also serve Augustiner from Mülln, even from the Salzburg barrel and in the original stone mugs. In that case, may the hype never end! Summary: Is the sausage stand being reinvented or is it just hype? Either way, the hot dogs here are great and there's Müllner on tap.

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