Guesthouses in the Mühlviertel in Austria
We were traveling on a research tour to inns in the Mühlviertel in Upper Austria. The Mühlviertler Alm Tourism Authority had invited us to do so. I hadn't expected that the inns in the Mühlviertel would be so varied. Smart innkeepers in the Mühlviertel proved us wrong. These inns in the Mühlviertel are anything but boring. With ideas and imagination, they offer their guests an inn experience that is impressive. It is worth discovering the inn culture in the Mühlviertel.
Wirtshaus Culture
Wirtshäuser (taverns) have been around for centuries. That's true, for example, for the Stiftskeller St. Peter in Salzburg as the oldest restaurant in Austria. It was first mentioned in a document in 803. In Germany, the inn “Zum Riesen” in Miltenberg claims to be one of several that had this status. Many of these inns were located outside of towns and often at places where travelers rested between two places. They served traders and travelers as rest stops and sometimes as overnight accommodation on journeys. In history, markets were typically many days' journey away, so intermediate stops were necessary. Some of these stations offered accommodation and food in addition to changing horses. Others were located in the town centers. They gave travelers access to local events. Inns in the Mühlviertel still do this today.
The inns in the Mühlviertel that we visited are not quite that old. In Austria a distinction is made between restaurants and inns. The former are limited to entertaining guests with food. The latter also offer accommodation. The innkeepers in the Mühlviertel do not do it any differently. On our trip through the Mühlviertel we visited restaurants that only offered food. At the Dorfwirt Raab in Rechberg *(advertisement) and in Hotel Hubertus in Freistadt *(advertisement) we not only ate, but also stayed overnight. Inns in the Mühlviertel still fulfil both functions today. We started our inn culture journey to the Taverns in the Mühlviertel in Freistadt. Then it was on to the outskirts of the city.
Tavern Food in Austria
Here they cook with herbs
We love food made with herbs. So I was all the more curious about what the Schimpl family served us at the Dunzinger herb innkeeper in Hirschbach. The restaurant specializes in herbal cuisine. The ingredients for it are supplied by farmers from the region in the Mountain Herbs Cooperative or they come from their own herb garden. Therefore, one looks in vain for sea fish on the menu. Instead, we find soups made from Mühlviertel pumpkin or game. Deer and stag also play a role in the daily menu in autumn. Venison roulade, venison saddle steak, leg of venison and venison ragout come from game from the region. You will also look in vain for soft drinks or beers from large breweries. Instead, the landlord in the herb tavern makes herbal juices and herbal lemonades and serves beers from the Schlägl Abbey Brewery or from small craft beer breweries in the region.
To the main course
Alternatively there are salads with turkey, a potato cordon bleu or a "Quendl-Hendl". Quendl is wild thyme. The chef fills his country chicken with this and with raw ham and mozzarella. However, the fact that no sea fish is on the table does not mean that there is no fish. Instead, the host prepares pikeperch or salmon trout from local waters. For those who don't like meat at all, there is potato noodles with vegetables, herbs and a cream sauce.
In conclusion
For dessert, you can choose between chocolate mousse with chocolate dumplings and fruit sorbet or poppy seed noodles like grandma used to make with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Everything is homemade, of course. A liqueur from Hirschbacher Genussbrenner also tastes great with it. Rupert Wiesinger distills liqueurs from his own fruit varieties. The selection is so large that we don't even know what to try: the little sweet treat, the sunset fruit liqueur, the sloe, raspberry or Dirndl liqueur? Or would you prefer a whisky, gin or herbal grain?
Herbalist Dunzinger
Guttenbrunn 18
A-4242 Hirschbach
We continue our tour of the inns in the Mühlviertel with a visit to the
Krapfenschleiferei in Tragwein - extraordinary inns in the Mühlviertel
The Lichtenegger family of farmers came up with the idea of offering one of their seasonal pastry in all variations. They have a selection of farmer's doughnuts that I had never seen anywhere else. In their show kitchen, you can watch how the doughnuts are "polished". This is what they call rolling the dough into a ball. It's not that easy, because you should use as little flour as possible. Otherwise, the dough will be hard.
Then it's time to pull out the dough. This creates a thick border. However, the inside of the donut should be as thin as possible. After that they bake the donuts in lard. The Lichtenegger family is constantly developing new versions of how they prepare their tasty farmer's donuts. We tried donut burgers, donuts with ice cream, with berries or with eggnog. There's donut toast, vegetarian donuts, and more. We show you how to make donuts yourself in this recipe. But if you ever go to the Mühlviertel, we definitely recommend a visit to the Bauernkrapfenschleiferei.
Bauernkrapfenschleiferei
Hinterberg 11
A-4284 carrying wine
An atypical goose meal at Dorfwirt Raab
The cook in the Raab inn in Rechberg shows us that a goose meal doesn't have to be traditional. We visited the Dorfwirt Raab *(advertisement), where you can also stay overnight very comfortably, a few days before November 11th. The innkeeper showed us with his goose menu that it doesn't always have to be goose with red cabbage and dumplings. On the contrary, with our goose dinner we indulged in a goose menu with six courses, where even the dessert was made with ingredients from the goose.
Our menu started with homemade ravioli filled with goose meat, bramble, root vegetables, leeks and red cabbage. The whole thing was topped off with a parmesan spruce chip. A goose flax soup was followed by a pulled goose - based on the American model of a pulled goose. This was served with bacon, red cabbage, rocket, pear, cranberries and pancake. The glazed goose liver in the next course was accompanied by a saffron apple, Dirndl jam and bread dumplings. For the main course, the village innkeeper served us goose breast glazed in honey and garlic, with creamed savoy cabbage and Bohemian dumplings.
Finally, the dessert was particularly exciting. The Freak Out Goose (the crazy goose) consisted of roasted goose chips on salted caramel ice cream. The whole thing was served on a salad bed with a lemon vinaigrette. The landlady told us that a restaurant in the USA inspired her to make this dessert. Although they were initially skeptical, they were so enthusiastic about this idea that they serve the dessert in their own tavern today. Rightly so, we think. The Dorfwirt Raab is one of the inns in the Mühlviertel that draws inspiration from foreign cuisines.
Dorfwirt Raab
Rechberg 11
A-4324 Rechberg
Conclusion: Inns in the Mühlviertel to savor
With this guide to the inns in the Mühlviertel you are well equipped for an interesting trip to savor in the Mühlviertler Alm and Freistadt region. The innkeepers in the Mühlviertel are full of ideas and thus create a tavern culture that has little to do with Stammtisch and roast pork with dumplings. In these inns you can experience the products from the region. The hosts present them with a kick and full of enthusiasm. This is slow food at its best!
Accommodation in the region can be found around Freistadt
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By the way, do you know anything else?
- our raw materials Goose shopping tour through Burgenland
- A tip for a trip: the Lipno Lake in Czech Republic
- this Taverns in the Kleinwalsertal
- how the St. Martin's goose tastes particularly good
- the perfect gift for pleasure travelers
- Enjoyment travel and travel destinations
- Upper Austria travel destinations
Source: Inns in the Mühlviertel: On-site research. We would like to thank Tourismus Mühlviertler Alm and Genuss Reisen for the invitation.
Text inns in the Mühlviertel: © Copyright Monika Fuchs and TravelWorldOnline
Photos of guesthouses in the Mühlviertel: © Copyright Monika Fuchs and TravelWorldOnline
