I am 35 years old and was born in Schwarzenberg in the Bregenzerwald in Austria. I grew up on a farm, surrounded by lots of handicrafts, manual labor and nature. After school I started to work in the catering industry, because the opportunities in the region were many. I decided in 2003 to do a three-year service apprenticeship at the Hotel "Post" in Bezau. It was a classic gastronomic profession that taught me many skills.
The tone in the industry was rough, but I still learned a lot. Later, I worked in various hotels until I moved to Dornbirn. There I worked at the Innauer, where I first came into contact with cocktails. I stayed there for three years. Then came a big cut, because I wanted to move either to Hamburg, Berlin or Vienna. I sent out random applications to be F & B manager. In the end, I chose Vienna to help open a new hotel.
It was like a completely new life with all the new impressions in the big city. There was also a lot of partying, which sometimes made it difficult to reconcile life and work. During this time, I also realized what I wanted and what I didn't want. With a lot of input from management on one side and challenges from employees on the other, you're stuck in the middle and pressured from both sides, which was an important but very hard lesson for me. So I decided to turn my back on the hotel industry. I got the opportunity to open a place called Kussmaul (today Das Spittelberg).
They wanted to cook at Michelin-star level, had their own bakery and were also looking for a bar manager. It was a perfect fit, because I wanted to do everything myself from scratch, and the restaurant and the concept followed the same philosophy. Cooking was interesting to me as well, but cooking with liquids was the big turning point. I had done most of the other things before - cheese sommelier, water sommelier, but cooking with liquids was new at the time.
After Kussmaul, I needed a change and decided to open a pop-up. I had the opportunity to set up a bar called Barrikade at night in a space that served as a café during the day. That's also where I met Lucas, my business partner. We became fast friends. I worked at the pop-up for a year, and it was there that the idea of opening something of our own together came up. We decided to stay in the city and started looking for a place. We finally found Brother and opened in January 2019.
Personal:
Born: 1988
Special skills: The craziness of never sitting still and always being on the hunt for something new.
Free time: We go foraging and gather ingredients on our own. When the weather is good, I go to the woods around Vienna and look for mushrooms or herbs.
Barkeeper since: 2014
Biggest mistake: Nothing, actually. Looking back, I'm very happy with how everything turned out.
Favorite cocktail: Negroni, but mostly I like to drink spirits neat.
Favorite bar: I've never been, but I have to say Velvet in Berlin. They have a similar philosophy to the brother.
A dream: Someday I want to have more time to do the things I want to do: go back to the roots and start fresh. Running the store now also takes me away from the core and love of why I started it.
Brother
We wanted to get away from the usual Gault Millau or Michelin praised restaurant 2.0. Our goal was to create our own F & B cosmos. Craftsmanship and working with regional suppliers that we know personally. Staying true to our beliefs was important to us. Today we brew our own beer and make our own cheese and sausage - we just try new things. But in the end, everything has to be financially worthwhile.
It was always important to us to open a restaurant that made sense. It was also about recycling food waste and reducing it as much as possible. That's why Bruder is also big on fermenting. After we found the location, we started renovating and did a lot of the work ourselves, even though we are not talented craftsmen.
Our concept focus is on natural wine, we have our own wine, prosecco, pet nat and vermouth. To work regionally and always have a direct line to suppliers, that is our core strategy. Brother is basically a store within a store. So the sheer variety is fantastic. There are four cocktails and eight long drinks on the menu. But of course we can also do classics with a twist.
The future
The future is happening as we speak. We opened 2019, which was a normal year, and then Covid came and everything changed. We thought about the future differently before and after the pandemic, because we learned a lot during that difficult time. Brother started with four people, now we are a team of nine people.
We are trying to become faster, more agile and bolder. We even expanded during the pandemic and added an area to the restaurant. We started selling wine and opened a store next door. We invested a lot in wine. Basically, we ordered wine from suppliers while everyone else didn't buy anything.
You should never lose your youthful carefree spirit. I would like to sell more of our products, as we do everything ourselves, and also expand the retail store.
This article appeared in
Issue 1-2023
BAR NEWS magazine as single issue
