Malerwinkl

Regional ingredients before the pass

Regional ingredients set the pace before the plate leaves the pass. Malerwinkl in Hatzendorf, near Fehring, is a village restaurant whose kitchen works in a Modern Styrian register, and Peter Troißinger Sr. is the executive chef. His work joins traditional Austrian cooking to contemporary flair, and his path is unusual in the trade: he moved from chef to a wider practice as sculptor and painter without leaving the stove, which is why the art around the house reads as part of the same authorship rather than as decoration bought in.

The house is a restaurant, art hotel and vinothek at once, embedded in Styria’s Thermen and Vulkanland. It works from Styrian produce, local sourcing, and a menu that can move between traditional Austrian comfort and modern plates without treating the region as a costume. The cooking arrives prepared with a lot of feeling, well seasoned and generous. It is a small room by temperament, upscale casual in service, and more interested in the long conversation between garden, wine, and plate than in theatre for its own sake.

Char, kohlrabi, peas, hollandaise

The dish that gives the method its sharpest outline is char with kohlrabi, peas, vegetables, and truffle hollandaise. It is not a maximal plate. The fish carries the centre, the kohlrabi and peas keep the register green and Styrian, and the hollandaise brings the old sauce discipline into a modern frame. The kitchen also offers set menus and à la carte cooking, including surprise menus and event menus, which lets the room keep one foot in the Wirtshaus habit and one in a more composed tasting rhythm.

The house describes its cooking through regional ingredients rather than through imported luxury, with near-exclusive use of Styrian produce. That choice gives the craft its pressure. A kitchen built this way has to make decisions at the bench every day: what to leave plain, what to sharpen with acidity, where a sauce earns its place, and when a familiar Austrian gesture needs only a cleaner cut. The wine program follows the same ground. Malerwinkl is also a vinothek, with Austrian wines available by the glass and regional bottles to take away, and its Winzerabende pair wine with a 10-course menu.

Light through the winter garden

The room belongs as much to the art hotel as to the restaurant. Malerwinkl includes a bright winter garden, a terrace, and a garden set with sculptures by the chef-owner, so the visual work is not hung as afterthought. It sits in the path of the meal. From the terrace, the sculpture garden gives the restaurant its slower weather: greenery, objects, wine, and the sort of conversational noise that lets a table stay with a dish instead of racing past it.

The setting is rural without becoming rustic shorthand. Hatzendorf sits near Fehring, and the house uses that position plainly: regional produce, Austrian wine, a relaxed room, and enough polish to carry a set menu. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand in the 2025 guide, along with Falstaff recognition at 91 points and 3 forks, and the room keeps art, lodging, wine, and the pass tied to the same garden.

What the house keeps in view

Malerwinkl matters because it keeps a village restaurant from becoming only one thing. It can serve Backhendl salad, a composed fish course, a wine evening, or a candle-lit menu, and still return to the same discipline: Styrian ingredients handled with enough modernity to stay awake. At Malerwinkl, the char remains the fixed point.