Made in Sud

Review

Alberto's heirs

Alberto Stefanelli looked a bit like a late Marcello Mastroianni, elegant, mischievous and very Italian. The man from Tuscany actually came to Vienna in 2001 to sell wine, but soon he also set up a few tables in his wine warehouse called Bacco at Margaretenstraße 36 and cooked grandiose Tuscan cuisine for insiders in a makeshift kitchen. And if there was no table free, he also served in his small office. To get the whole thing on a legal level, he took over a restaurant across the street in 2016, without a menu, serving whatever was available at Caffè Bacco, which was always great.
But it was also difficult, which is why he was looking for a successor; and in Alberto's opinion, there was really only one: his friend Mino Zaccaria, who had been managing various high-end Italian restaurants in Vienna for over 20 years, but with a strong penchant for genuine Italian cucina vera. In autumn 2020, Alberto Stefanelli died at the age of 68 after contracting Covid-19. His daughter tried to continue the business, but was not happy, so Mino Zaccaria did what was planned anyway: He took over the Caffè Bacco, leaving everything exactly as it was, including the wine crates in the middle of the restaurant, with Tibor Hruza in the kitchen, who had cooked alongside Alberto Stefanelli for 18 years, with Paolo Savaro worthily standing in for Stefanelli, without a menu and with wonderful Italo cuisine, for which you pay under 50 euros for a four-course meal with two glasses of wine, water and espresso.
And Mino Zaccaria also bought the original Bacco last year, leasing it to his fellow Apulian Francesco Tedesco, who had long wanted to do something of his own together with the great chef Ante Makelja. The two of them converted the wine bar into a pretty, tiny Osteria Made in Sud with an integrated delicatessen, Francesco's aunt makes fresh pasta in the mornings, there is no classic menu here either, you can choose whether you want a small, medium or large meal (€ 39/49/59). Prosciutto and cappocollo from the only prosciutto maker in Apulia, "Crostacei misti", an assortment of raw seafood, with blue crab salad, prawn cevice, raw red mullet, raw scampo, insanely good. Yellow fish soup too, "I didn't know it", laughs Francesco, brilliant pasta and the brodetto of gurnard from the Portuguese Cataplana. Incidentally, Francesco Tedesco prices the wines in Italian, i.e. with a minimal mark-up. And last but not least, because Alberto Stefanelli always dreamed of a fish restaurant - he would be incredibly proud. Summary: Alberto Stefanelli's restaurants have evolved into a kind of micro Italy. Margaretenstrasse is becoming Italian, and that can only be a good thing.

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