It's back! The guide. The Michelin rebirth in Austria. An analysis
                     It's back! The guide. The 
Michelin rebirth in 
Austria. An analysis
Years of waiting came to an end yesterday. The reborn Michelin Austria was awaited like the 
return of the Seven Samurai. Alexander Rabl analyses whether the sword was sharp for the 
Wineparty
A party the likes of which had not been seen in Austria for a long time took place in Hangar 
7 at Salzburg Airport. The futuristic architecture made of steel and glass provided the 
ambience for the awarding of the stars of the eagerly awaited Michelin Guide Austria. The 
setting, flooded with the light of the winter sun in the afternoon and with perfect lighting in 
the evening, was   a setting that Austrian gastronomy rarely gets to enjoy, but according to 
the findings of the Michelin inspectors, it was well deserved. For the 600 or so invited 
guests, the presentation of the award-winning establishments and chefs meant a lot of 
legwork (countless standing ovations) and manual work (frenetic applause).
The highlight of the evening: the awarding of the third star to the Viennese restaurant 
Steirereck am Stadtpark, the Austrian reference establishment par excellence, a company 
whose merits are undisputed.
Because wine is mentioned a lot here , let's start with a bit of alcohol. That's about the fly in the 
ointment. Michelin Austria has been published, but - and this is the fly in the ointment - it is only 
available as an online version, not as a printed restaurant guide, as is the case with the Guide Rouge 
(because of the red color). So when I walk into the Frick bookshop on Graben and go to the shelf 
where the various Michelin guides for Italy, France or Switzerland are kept, and then ask where the 
new Michelin for Austria is, which is currently receiving so much media coverage, the staff will point 
out to me that this restaurant guide - and this is a first for Michelin - is not available in book form - 
which is somehow surprising. On the other hand, some people still remember that the sales success 
of the printed Michelin guides for Austria in the 2000s was, to put it mildly, modest. Perhaps   the 
Michelin makers are still feeling the effects of this failure, because it can't be a matter of money that 
prevented them from even producing a modest edition.
It is rumored that the Michelin company has received and will continue to receive €600,000 annually 
from tourism organizations in eight federal states (Vienna did not participate)*. 
This is contractually guaranteed for the next five years, which means that an annual new edition of the 
Michelin is guaranteed at least for this period. And because of these quasi-governmental subsidies, 
which the State Secretary for Tourism Susanne Kraus-Winkler (ÖVP) had approved in Parliament, the 
The backstory   to this rebirth of the Michelin Guide is an Austrian version of House of Cards, a game of 
intrigue, fueled by greed and fear of losing one's own hegemony in a highly competitive market. The 
Austrian Falstaff publisher Wolfgang Rosam played Frank Underwood and his wife Claire was replaced by 
Martina Hohenlohe, editor-in-chief of GaultMillau Austria. Actually an alliance between two competitors 
who are not usually on good terms with each other. 
Their arguments: Nobody in Austria needs a Michelin, and certainly not at the expense of taxpayers and 
other public donors. It must be said, however, that the majority of the funding came from tourism 
associations and the Chamber of Commerce, which are mostly financed by compulsory contributions 
from their members, not by taxes. Rosam and Hohenlohe said that this funding was also an unfair 
distortion of the market to the detriment of domestic guides, which up to now also included the À la 
carte guide, which is not being published this year for the first time because the publisher finds the costs 
too high.
But neither Rosam nor Hohenlohe could ultimately counter the argument that the restaurant ratings of 
the Michelin Guide and not those of Falstaff, GaultMillau or À la carte are unrivalled as an international 
currency in the world of top gastronomy and culinary travel. It is also rumored that the Falstaff publishing 
house has also received several hundred thousand euros in funding. Nevertheless, Falstaff publisher 
Wolfgang Rosam has not let himself be refrained from strongly questioning the qualifications and 
research of the Michelin on X and in newsletters in recent days. In the meantime, the restaurants 
awarded a star have been offered an advertorial by Falstaff at a price of several thousand euros. Business 
is business.
Austrian gastronomy is at its peak , but it is becoming increasingly difficult to find local guests 
for the many good restaurants. Like Germany, Austria is in the third year of a recession. 
Inflation over the last three years has totaled around 25%. Austrians' money has ended up with 
the energy companies, who have enriched themselves in an outrageous way over the past few 
years. Added to this has been a price increase in the gastronomy sector of a good 30%, caused 
by higher personnel costs, food prices and energy prices. These prices are hard on guests' 
stomachs, they curb their appetite for a meal in the gourmet department, which can also cost 
700 euros for two people in a one-star category. So it is economically right to significantly 
expand the target group for Austrian gastronomy - we are talking here about the upscale and 
top gastronomy, which is represented across the board between Vienna and Bregenz - by 
making this type of gastronomy visible to tourists and travelers. The fact that you can earn 
more money from travelers who visit a region because of the food than from young families or 
cyclists has now also spread to tourism advertisers.
In addition, the production costs of Michelin are much higher than those of Falstaff, which 
employs no testers at all and gets its rankings from online voting, which is then classified by an 
editor; or those of GaultMillau, whose freelance restaurant testers are paid a flat fee of 120 to 
150 per restaurant, from which they have to pay travel expenses and restaurant bills such as 
overnight stays. That's all. That this will never work out becomes clear when you take a look at 
the menu of an Austrian gourmet restaurant. 
The Michelin inspectors, on the other hand, are employed and have social insurance. Their 
expenses are fully covered and, depending on the type of restaurant, are not exactly low, 
although the inspectors do not overdo it with the wine. After all, the food is their main focus.
For the presentation of the Michelin Guide, the Austrian Tourist Board invited journalists from 
all over the world to Salzburg, spared no expense or effort, worked professionally in the field 
and is currently organizing press trips to top restaurants and selected producers across Austria. 
The troops are on the road for three days, including restaurant writers from Switzerland, 
Germany and English-speaking countries. The author was also on an invitation list, but 
declined, after all, the event should be open to those who have not yet experienced the 
establishments.
Before the Guide was published , people were wondering how the inspectors would approach 
Austria. Would they be generous or would they be stingy with the awarding of the coveted 
stars, perhaps to increase the excitement for Guide 26? Now we can say: They were generous. 
In the largely carefully researched online edition, there is an address for every nook and cranny 
of Austria that has been awarded a Bib Gourmand, a green star (for services to sustainability) 
or one, two or three stars.
It's a shame that you can't find these addresses on a map , as Michelin consumers have known for 
decades from Italy and France. The generosity of the Michelin inspectors, which is not leniency but 
reflects reality, puts Austria on the virtual map of food nations such as Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, 
Great Britain and Germany. The small country, which is particularly influenced and dependent on tourism 
in the west, can now negotiate with the countries mentioned on an equal footing when it comes to good 
food and food culture. In contrast to the other German-speaking countries, Austrian cuisine is also very 
much influenced by tradition and history and is not simply a rip-off of French haute cuisine. In restaurants 
such as Obauer in Salzburg's Werfen, the Döllerer in Golling, the Landhaus Bacher in the Wachau or the 
Steirereck in Vienna, you can often find quotes from earlier times, or even entire dishes that were 
prepared and eaten in Austria in the 18th or 19th century. Both the austere Alpine cuisine and the more 
opulent and meat-heavy cuisine of the former crown lands - including the delicious desserts - characterize 
this food culture and give it something distinctive. A more interchangeable high-end cuisine is most likely 
to be found in some of the multi-starred addresses in the cities and in the small gourmet enclaves of the 
luxury hotels in the ski resorts. There, it can happen that the star cuisine seems static and redundant, but 
is nevertheless executed at a high or extremely high level.
The green stars awarded by the tire company's restaurant guide are beyond my understanding. The fact 
that a restaurant operates sustainably and sources many of its ingredients from the area says less about 
the quality of the food than a Bib Gourmand (for great value for money) or one or more stars (for 
exceptional food that may be worth a trip, see the three stars for Steirereck and Amador in Vienna). They 
were also awarded somewhat arbitrarily and if the term greenwashing springs to mind in this context, 
you might not be entirely wrong.
When I read through the list of awards, only a few establishments stand out that deserve more 
praise. The Bootshaus in Traunkirchen on Lake Traunsee is quite underrated with one star , 
and the brilliant head chef Lukas Nagl received the pity of some colleagues 
yesterday. Csencsits in Harmisch in southern Burgenland would have at least deserved a Bib 
Gourmand, and the Triad in the Bucklige Welt also inexplicably came away empty-
handed. The inspectors were not so generous after all.
Finally, Michelin proves to be frugal when it comes to its own demands on the guide's texts, 
which supplement and explain the ratings of the establishments. These texts seem extremely 
awkward, like a school essay, and in some cases as if they were created by an AI, updated in 
2023. Austria's restaurateurs and chefs certainly do not deserve such texts. 
—
*) In an earlier version of this article it was stated that the city of Vienna did not participate in 
the Michelin Guide Austria for political reasons. The city of Vienna said through one of its 
spokespersons that the reasons had nothing to do with politics, because: “Vienna is already 
represented in the Main Cities Michelin with Salzburg City. Therefore, participation made no 
sense.”
Thank 
You