Kias Kitchen - casual restaurant

Review

Oba, oba!

Last year was not a bad year for them, say Alexander and Kias Burget: firstly, it was the year in which the two men got married, and secondly, there was suddenly a notice in the window of the restaurant opposite their apartment saying that they were looking for a new tenant. And because Alexander, a manager in the gambling business, and Kias, a former ballet dancer from Brazil's capital Brasilia, had always known that they would open a restaurant one day, they seized the opportunity. That was in August. On December 12, the delicatessen area opened first, where you can buy Lower Austrian and Portuguese wine, Viennese mushroom sugos, Wachau sparkling wine from a Brazilian winemaker, several types of cachaça and a few more fine things. And a little later they also started cooking, for the time being all on a take-away basis, "but we can hardly wait to welcome our first guests," says Alexander Burget. "We are an international couple, so we also serve international cuisine," says Kias Burget, setting the tone. That means: a little Greek, quite a lot of Brazilian, then a little Indian (because Kias grew up in India) and whatever else the two of them like. Mainstream cuisine doesn't interest him at all, says Kias, and he doesn't want to conform to any expectations or Brazilian clichés. But at least there is a cook at the stove who also comes from Brasilia, and whether or not the woman is living up to expectations, her hot, small shortcrust empadinhas, bursting with butter, with a filling of chicken fricassee and homemade cream cheese in the style of the Brazilian national cheese, catupiry, are simply insanely good (€1.50 each).
Homemade is a big theme in Kias' kitchen - the sesame paste for the tahini soup is homemade, as is the coconut milk, which Kias squeezes from the few fresh coconuts he gets here in Vienna.
And because Brazilians are the only ethnic group apart from Italians who are capable of making really great dishes from beans, you can also get a black-eyed bean salad with dried tomatoes here, which is incredibly fresh and vibrant and delicious, and the optional smoked catfish from the Viennese aquaponics farm Blün is a great accompaniment (€ 7.50/8.90). Various stews will always be on the menu, says Kias, last week it was a moqueca, a kind of Brazilian coconut curry, which was available with Viennese mushrooms (€ 11.90) or Viennese catfish and was really very good (€ 13.90). Good now, fine when they really open. Summary: Brazilian-world cuisine soul food, prepared with a lot of heart and a lot of homemade food. Kias Kitchen, 6th, Gumpendorfer Straße 37, Tel. 0676/385 00 20, Tue-Sat 10 am-7 pm

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