December 2016
Chef: Stefan Speiser
On a recent visit to Vienna (a beautiful city well worth visiting) we chose Opus, at The Hotel Imperial, for dinner.
I think the hotel is lovely grand and luxurious – a great setting for the restaurant. The restaurant itself was perfect and had a calm, elegant atmosphere which I enjoyed.
We chose the five course Opus menu which was excellent. I would describe the majority of the courses as simply (and perfectly) cooked meat or fish but all served with an incredible sauce. By the end of the meal we had privately dubbed the chef: ‘king of the sauces’ because there was an amazing amount of flavour in each and every one. Delightful.
Nearly every course also incorporated some sort of pickled vegetables but of course this isn’t the ‘beetroot in vinegar’ sort of pickled veg which Britons might now be imagining with a grimace. This is delightedly refreshing and varied pickled vegetables which complimented the dishes well.
We chose to have wines paired to each course and were delighted to learn that each wine was Austrian and many were from nearby vineyards. The wines themselves were very enjoyable and a great match for the food.
Another memorable element of the dinner was the butter served with the bread which took the form of a butter candle, lit at the table and which then resulted in warm butter soaking into the fresh herbs waiting the base of the candle-holder. Incorporated with warm bread this was a heavenly start to the meal.
In summary I think this is a great place. If you are in Vienna this is, without doubt, worth a visit.
Rating 9/10
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