Amador
Amador review at-a-glance
+The perfect blend of modern and classic cooking.
+Top shelf tapas to start the meal were among the best starting amuses I have encountered.
+Consistent excellence throughout the entire meal
Rating: 96/100
Verdict: I almost didn’t visit Amador. A pretty tepid review from AndyHayler and the price tag almost scared me off. I am glad it didn’t, as my meal at Amador dazzled from beginning to end. It started off fast with a barrage of tapas and did not let up until the very end, the kitchen churning out dish after dish that ranged from sure to be among my favorites of the year (N25 caviar with beurre blanc ice cream) to merely excellent. This kind of consistency is incredibly hard to keep up throughout a meal but Chef Amador managed to do it, showing an impressive ability to deftly blend flavors and techniques from across the globe to design balanced and complex dishes. Amador was an early food highlight of 2022.
Price I Paid: €295
Would I revisit: Yes
Date Visited: April 2022
Value: 14/20
Chef Juan Amador's background
Nestled in the foothills of the Vienna in a working winery (Weingut Hajszan Neumann), Amador’s current location is actually the third iteration of Chef Juan Amador’s eponymous restaurant - he previously operated Amador in a traditional half-timbered house in Langen, Germany before moving to an industrial park in Mannheim, Germany and then finally the current version in Vienna. Why he has moved so much I don’t know but I found the current dining room quite sleek with contrasting white tablecloths and red accents providing a stark contrast to the brick cellar. Be aware that the brick cellar blocks most cell reception and there is no wifi so you need to be prepared for some thrilling dinner conversation as you are unlikely to be able to much scrolling on your phone.
Just like the location has continuously evolved, so too has Chef Amador’s cooking. From reading prior reviews, the cooking at Amador’s three-star location in Germany was quite modernist in the vein of Alinea or Fat Duck with quite a few theatrics and transformation of ingredients using the latest molecular gastronomy techniques. While most modernist chefs tend to push their cooking forward by trying ever more daring combinations, Chef Amador has elected to blend a more classical style into his repertoire. While not his original calling card, based on my visit Chef Amador shows just as much mastery over those classic techniques as he was reputed to have with the modernist style that earned him three stars in the first place. The end result of the combination of old and new is a blend of modern and traditional techniques with bold and diverse flavors that create superb dishes.
Only one menu is offered for lunch and dinner, a lengthy tasting menu for €295. Hefty when Vienna’s two stars run roughly 30-40% less but Chef Amador’s cooking is more than worth the price tag. The wine list was extensive as you might expect for a restaurant in a working winery (barrels of wine were visible in the dining room) with some 1000+ labels presented on an Ipad. While the wine pairing came at a high price (€175), wines by the glass were exceedingly reasonable (€8-€20ish) with quite a few options. When I showed an interest in orange wines, the sommelier jumped into action and poured two different ones (neither of which were on the wine list) and let me pick my favorite. He generously did this side-by-side comparison between wines for each of the three glasses I ordered, adding a little fun to the wine which was all €8-€13. More sommeliers should be like this.
What I ate at Amador
Dinner at Amador shows off the Chef’s Spanish heritage by starting with an impressive array of tapas, delivered to the table just as you are settling down. On the left, you have the restaurant’s take on the German classic boiled beef “tafelsplitz”. Not usually an exciting dish, the meat was enrobed in a crispy shell with apple and horseradish to create an eclectic bite with plenty of flavors that was also paired with a deeply flavorful beef tea. In the middle, you have a bit of foie gras, with jalapeno, corn, and a small piece of dried ham. Again, lots of nice flavors and beautifully executed with the ham taking you from Germany to Spain in just a bite. Lastly, on the right, you had Amador’s take on the Spanish tortilla, topped with a quail egg and chorizo. Not quite as sublime as the foie bite but better than the best amuse at most starred restaurants.
The tapas continued with a “walk in the forest”, a clever little crisp with plenty of umami mushroom flavor and a little freshness from the greenery. Lastly you had a bit of balfego tuna with wasabi and white bean. This might sound like a pedestrian bite but it was far from it, the white bean adding a very surprising and pleasant flavor to the classic combination of tuna and wasabi. It is hard to understate how impressive this collection of tapas was. They featured varied techniques and flavors that traversed the entire globe but still felt coherent and the product of one chef. An excellent start that set expectations quite high for the rest of the meal.
The end of the tapas did not mean any drop in dish standard though as a more substantial amuse bouche of organic egg, hollandaise, spinach and Perigord black truffle was just as good and provided a nice bridge to the main menu. Each component of the dish was interesting by itself and combined to make a near perfect dish. The egg yolk had been cooked for more than a day, giving it a jammy-like texture that was completely different than the runny poached egg you typically get in eggs benedict. Perigord truffle (just a shade past peak season) was applied amply so its earthiness came through the entire dish. Sweetbreads in all their silky, fatty glory. Spinach to provide some relief from all the fattiness. What a dish.
As good as the tapas and amuse bouche were, the first 'course’ of the menu was yet still better featuring an ice cream made of the classic French beurre blanc sauce and served with hazelnut milk, oyster, and n25 caviar. Beurre blanc sauces are always among my favorites so turning it into ice cream was a stroke of genius, the contrasting temperature adding an interesting dimension when paired with the Gillareadu oysters (No 2, the plumpest and most expensive). Tying it all together was top-shelf N25 caviar in all of its glory. Rich butter-based sauce, oyster, and caviar is not an original flavor combination but the incorporation of modern techniques created an original and exciting dish. This was clearly a signature dish of the chef for a reason and is likely to end up among my favorites of 2022.
The next course was langoustine with veal head, black mustard and brown butter. Not quite as stunning as the last two dishes but still a technically strong dish that managed to find harmony between quite a few bold flavors. The langoustine had a nice snappy texture while the pressed veal head and mustard gave the dish a slightly Germanic slant. We stayed in the domain of the sea with a nice piece of turbot that was paired with cabbage, bacon, and caraway. This was a dish all about vibrant colors and flavors with the cabbage providing a bit of place, reminding the guest you were in Austria and not France. Texture came from the fish’s skin which showed off excellent technique as it was beautifully crisped.
Another signature of Chef Amador is his pigeon dish which is centered around mango, curry and coconut. While this combination of flavors is a long time staple from the chef, he has reimagined it in recent years by incorporating beetroot and changing the presentation - thus the name “next chapter”. While I never had the original, this was a very impressive piece of cooking with the pigeon served in two courses to show off how the kitchen can use the same combination of flavors to create distinct dishes. First, you have a raviolo, filled with confit leg and served in a coconut curry sauce. This had a wonderful texture on the raviolo with a great interplay between coconut and curry. Even better was the main part, a few succulent pieces of pigeon breast were interspersed with mango and placed in a glistening curry sauce. Draped on top, you had yet more curry, this time formed into a jelly, and a coconut air. Really just a tremendous bit of cookery, with immaculately sourced pigeon from Mieral having plenty of flavor further highlighted by the subtle spice in the curry and sweetness of the mango.
In lieu of a cheese board, the restaurant sent a composed cheese dish centered around Chiriboga blue, cherry and pumpkin seeds. Composed cheese dishes can be a mixed bag but this a stunner, reminding me a bit of a similar dish at Atelier when Hartwig was still the chef. Cherries and blue cheese are such a wonderful pair but what took this to the next level was the pumpkin seeds which were caramelized into a tuile on top and added wonderful texture.
Desert was Amador’s very modern take on the classic Austrian apple strudel which included flavors of Tahitian vanilla and rum. This was technically impressive (and quite the sight to look at) but the flavors of apple strudel, while very appropriate for the region, can only get so exciting for me.
Just like the start of the meal, dinner ended with an impressive set of small bites. From top left to bottom right, these were a matcha and calamansi lollipop adorned with the restaurant’s logo, a sweet and salty dessert focused on pretzels, a “homage to Jackson Pollock”., flavors of blackberry, and yogurt on top of a meringue, a small tartlet with sunflower, passion fruit, and chocolate and, lastly, Amador’s take on the Cuba libre. In totality, these were not quite at the sublime level of the opening tapas but still at a very high standard. Highlights were the homepage to Jackson Pollock which featured white chocolate, raspberry, and wasabi, an intriguing combination that was surprisingly well balanced.
