Salzburg

17 September

The Großglockner (Big Glacier) is one of the most stupendous natural sights I’ve seen. It’s also one of the best-known landmarks and third-most visited tourist destination in Austria but virtually unknown outside of its host country. I was looking forward to seeing it again after 17 years, but with a degree of trepidation given how climate change has wreaked havoc across the Alps. Many ski resorts are now reliant on snow machines and open for ever-shortening seasons, for example.

The €31 toll is as steep as the 48-kilometre road itself, yet both the views and the bends are undoubtedly worth it. But heavy rain and freezing temperatures mean it is closed, which is particularly galling as late summer has returned and with it, temperatures in the mid-teens and pale golden sunshine. Perfect, in other words.

No matter. The route from Cortina to Linz and then north to the Felbertauhern Tunnel is a never-ending masterpiece of road-building brilliance and looks like it was resurfaced yesterday. How these alpine nations keep their roads in such immaculate order, given the climatic challenges they have to deal with, is simply that it is a political priority to do so whereas in the UK, it isn’t.

Think Salzburg and Mozart and ‘The Sound of Music’ come to mind. Not the seemingly neverending, drab hinterland that starts now in Zell-am-Zee, some thirty miles to the south that appears typical of most of Salzburg. But it’s worth fighting through the traffic as perched on top of one of the various hills that peer over the city is the modestly priced yet elaborately named Hotel Johannes Schlössl Gästehaus der Pallottiner am Mönchsberg. Very OK it is too although it resembles a well-run Youth Hostel.

Better still, it’s only a fifteen-minute stroll down the hill, first to the Biergarten of the Augustiner Mülln Braueri and then to Esszimmer, a single-Michelin-starred restaurant on an otherwise unprepossessing street. Thankfully, the punter is not railroaded into a multi-course tasting menu although those are available at €155 or €185 a head, should you so choose. Instead, you can do a pick and mix from the two menus and have what you want and in any order, although they have a not-very-firmly-imposed view on sequencing.

This ends up a more satisfying result of fewer courses but with portions that are more than just a taste. Special mention must go to the wine that was exclusively Austrian and stunningly good, all suggested by a hostess of great charm and professionalism. At €36 for four decent-sized glasses, the pricing is not greedy in the slightest.

Food-wise, it’s an unusual formula. Classic ingredients: salmon, langoustine, turbot, lamb, ox-tail and so on. Preparation has a Germanic attention to detail: precisely 1mm of my salmon was cooked, leaving the rest raw like sushi. Most surprising is the odd eastern or Asiatic flourish: the lamb shoulder element of my main course was made into a Japanese-inspired gyosa and before that, the broth a couple of langoustine came in was lightly curried.

€180 a head is hardly a bargain but you can pay a lot more for a lot less. Critically, Esszimmer has avoided the fate of many single-starred venues that churn out very similar grub, regardless of where in the world they are. This is a world-class restaurant that wears its local heart proudly on its sleeve.