The Salzburg Culinary Exchange

Restaurant Ikarus’ Guest Chef Concept

By Julia Aßl

Top Photo: Red Bull’s Hangar-7 at Salzburg Airport. Helge Kirchberger Photography

The restaurant Ikarus at Salzburg Airport not only offers the very best in fine dining, but also serves as a hub for a unique, transcontinental chef exchange. Each month, a different world-class chef creates an 8- to 12-course menu designed for culinary globetrotters. Even though the variety of the meals ranges from traditional to fusion to molecular cuisine, the high quality of the dishes still remains the unifying idea behind them. “It’s a concept that only someone wired on a high-caffeine energy drink could conceive,” stated The New York Times in reference to Dietrich Mateschitz, the proprietor of this splendid place and co-founder of Red Bull, the world’s leading energydrink producer.

The guest chef concept at Ikarus is run under the auspices of the acclaimed Austrian “Chef of the Century” Eckhart Witzigmann and Executive Chef Martin Klein, who has been managing the restaurant for over five years. The idea was born about 15 years ago, when Witzigmann refused Mateschitz’s offer to be the one-and-only chef of Ikarus. Instead, Mateschitz made sure that only top Michelin star chefs were invited to cook at Ikarus. Great emphasis is put on the proper preparation of each chef ’s visit, including joint short trips to the chefs’ home base to explore local markets together and learn more about their favorite ingredients and kitchen devices. The program runs year-round, except for the month of August, when the international crowd of Salzburg festivalgoers flocks to the city—then executive chef Klein and his team take over the kitchen.

Among the recent guest chefs hailing from the U.S. were the pioneering California chef David Kinch, New York’s Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Daniel Boulud, Dominique Crenn, as well as Christopher Kostow from the Bay Area.

The two Michelin-starred restaurant Ikarus opened in 2003 and boasts an exceptionally designed glasswalled hangar called Red Bull Hangar-7. It is located at Salzburg Airport right above the ground floor, where antique airplanes, motorcycles, helicopters, formula one racing cars, and exhibitions are displayed. Ever since the beginning of its construction, the vision of such a common space for technology, art, and entertainment has been kept in mind and put into practice by the Austrian architect Volkmar Burgstaller. Day and night, the impressive hangar is frequented by visitors seeking either to satisfy their curiosity about its particular architecture and exhibits or to witness the unique set during the regular recording of a TV show by the Austrian channel Servus TV.