MOTTO: EVERYTHING IN FLow

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Bernd Schlacher is what they call a self-made man in the United States: someone who has worked his way up through his own efforts. Not from dishwasher to millionaire, as the American cliché would have it, but from simple waiter to one of the most successful and best restaurateurs in Austria. At the age of 20, Schlacher started working as a waiter at the Wiener restaurant in the Austrian capital, only to spend a year in the Caribbean as a hotel manager in Jamaica some time later. Back in Austria, he took over the Motto in Vienna’s fifth district in 1991 and returned the New Wave restaurant to its traditional domain of cult restaurants.

BUILT CLOSE TO THE WATER

In contrast to many others in the industry, the successful Schlacher took things slowly when expanding and only cast an eye on the Danube Canal site near Schwedenplatz long after the turn of the millennium. As with the Copa Cagrana on the Danube Island and almost everywhere else on Vienna’s waterfront, the city itself is responsible for its catering and commercial use. In 2010, he opened a generously proportioned branch in the landing stage of the Twin City Liner, which connects Vienna and Bratislava by water: the Motto am Fluss.

VENETIAN FROM VIENNA

BEHF Architects from Vienna were entrusted with the planning and interior design. Since being founded by Armin Ebner, Susi Hasenauer and Stephan Ferenczy in 1995, they have achieved international renown with clients such as A1, Libro, Merkur, Deutsche Bank and WEIN & CO. The award-winning architectural firm is responsible for the Motel One near the Vienna State Opera, the Stafa Tower Vienna, the WEZ shopping mall (“Das weststeirische Einkaufszentrum”) and the Shopping Nord Graz in Schlacher’s Styrian homeland. The latest BEHF project is The Icon Vienna – a multifunctional office complex on the site of Vienna’s new main railway station at the Quartier Belvedere location.

CHICHI: NO-NO!

In terms of space, the Motto am Fluss looks rather modest in comparison in BEHF’s reference list; in terms of design, however, it can be counted among the office’s most beautiful works. The interior design specialists from BEHF, who worked on the catering project at Schwedenplatz, interpreted the Danube Canal as the Grand Canal – and the landing stage as a vaporetto stop. Accordingly, the motto on the river took the form of a caffè e ristorante in 1950s Venice. In keeping with Bernd Schlacher’s credo, which is: “We don’t offer our guests excessive chichi, but a cosy atmosphere at a high level.“

TABLEWARE WITH AN ART CLAIM

Many of the cocktail glasses that the Motto bar team knows how to fill so exquisitely also come directly from Venice, namely from NasonMoretti in Murano. Schlacher commissioned the Viennese ceramic artist Marianne Seiz to design and produce the tableware, who says of her work that every creative person has a dream: “It has always been my dream to produce beautiful tableware for good restaurants – and I have fulfilled it!” The aesthetic range of the service hardware at Motto am Fluss, where cosmopolitanism ranks at the top of the scale of values, corresponds exactly to the broad culinary horizon of Motto: international contemporary cuisine with an Austrian focus, which is not least due to Schlacher’s preference for food and beverages that are grown and produced as fairly, regionally and organically as possible.

THE BEST FROM NEXT DOOR

The Motto menu lists sophisticated and simple starters such as burrata with avocado, radishes and watercress or crispy courgette flowers with bulgur and Marchfeld artichokes, main courses such as saddle of veal with lettuce hearts, young peas and green asparagus tips or asparagus risotto with mint and pike-perch as well as desserts such as chocolate with hibiscus and rose or strawberries with curd cheese and balsamic vinegar. Among other things, the dishes are cooked with vegetable rarities from Herbeus Greens, a young nursery in Rannersdorf near Vienna, as well as organic vegetables from Michael Bauer, who specialises in “forcing” – growing plants in complete darkness – in the Weinviertel region and has become a supplier to top gastronomy.

LA BELLA TERRAZZA

Together with the Ottakringer brewery, Schlacher has created the Pur variety, which is the country’s first draught beer made exclusively from local and certified organic ingredients. More than half of the wines on the ambitious wine list come from organic Austrian vineyards, and the motto has teamed up with the Alt Wien roasting house for coffee. The result is a special blend for the Motto, the composition of which is kept secret. The coffee house blend is one of many individual elements that characterise the retro-Venetian chic of the establishment and its slightly Adriatic atmosphere. The sun terrace in front of the café on the upper deck makes a literally large-scale contribution: “It’s a huge area of almost 1,000 square metres,” says Fritz Suppan. Not by chance, of course, but because Mareiner’s architectural advisor was involved in the renovation of the ‘terrazza’. This had become necessary because the original oak floor had reached the end of its life cycle after eight years of service.

DAILY ENDURANCE TEST

“The stresses there are enormous,” explains Suppan. “In summer, when it’s scorching hot in Vienna anyway, the sun beats down on the wood, which is extremely stressed by the high footfall at Motto am Fluss. On a good day, around a thousand guests come and go here – not to mention the many kilometres that the service staff cover on the terrace on every fine day.” In the search for a potentially more durable material to replace the oak planks that had been trodden to death, the city of Vienna found what it was looking for at Mareiner and ultimately opted for the tropical wood-like and correspondingly hard Kebony. “If you choose Kebony, you get a floor for life,” says Suppan. “If the decking is constructed correctly and sufficient ventilation is ensured, the service life is virtually unlimited. Thirty years of guaranteed resistance to wood-destroying fungal attack is quite an achievement.”

ASSEMBLY IN THE SNOW

In consultation with the motto, the department responsible at the Vienna City Council decided against treating the floor with oil and thus in favour of making the traces of time visible. “In the meantime, the sun deck already has a beautiful silvery patina,” observed Suppan during his last visit to Vienna. In any case, the new themed terrace passed the acid test of the first season from spring to late autumn 2019 just as brilliantly as it survived the winter. Despite all the capricious weather and the high number of visitors, the wood is in perfect health. Incidentally, the material was no stranger to snow right from the start: “The installation work began just over a year ago in February 2019,” recalls Suppan, “there was still snow on board. But that wasn’t the big challenge. Rather, it was to lay the new floor while the business continued to operate. This meant that access to the pub had to be guaranteed at all times, which was not easy, especially at this location. And delivering and unloading something at Schwedenplatz isn’t the easiest of tasks either!”

KEBONY – FOR A FUTURE MADE OF WOOD

• The advantages of Kebony: kebony.com
• Durability, hardness and maximum mobility – the performance of Kebony