The Birdyard

Review

Upstairs hui, downstairs wui

Photo: Heribert Corn The following restaurant review has one disadvantage: it deprives you of the surprise effect you get when you come here for the first time. So either you read on, then go to the restaurant and forgo the amazement; or you go without having read the article and are then just as flabbergasted as I was. But you'll have to go anyway. As for expectations: The Birdyard Eatery and Bar, which opened last week, is the second restaurant from the makers of Mama Liu & Sons, a former Chinese restaurant on Gumpendorfer Straße, which was pretty ugly but where you could get fantastic starters and cook yourself an extra-large hot pot fondue at the table with rickety gas burners. In 2014, the restaurant was given a completely new look, its current name and a menu that had been reduced to include the bad stuff. The success was enormous, but fans of the old Liu still regret this change to this day. And now the second restaurant, which would have been expected to tick in the same way, i.e. good mainstream Chinese cuisine in a nice suit and with a bar. But it turned out differently: in the basement, which was last home to the quirky Serenade Cabaret, a bar was created that operates with a really impressive sense of space: black ceiling, black seating niches, in between walls colorfully painted with birds, leaves and berries by Romanian street artist Saddo, very 60s, very LSD. Of the countless bars that have opened in the past two years, this is one that can stay. And then there's the ground floor. This is visually much less spectacular, so in concrete terms it looks a bit as if the architects had shot all their powder in the basement, but at least there was enough for an open kitchen. And because the two young men Max Hauf and Henry Diagne cook in it - both from Nuremberg, having worked at various top addresses in London, Munich and most recently with Konstantin Filippou in Vienna - the style doesn't matter at all. Once you're done, they cook great food! 14 dishes between 5.20 and 8.90 euros, the description of which on the menu leaves everything open. But then comes a burrata on black olive cream with bitter salads (€ 6.20), wow, or a braised veal sweetbread tossed in nut butter with cauliflower puree and caper leaves (€ 8.90) or a piece of butter-soft roasted pork belly with homemade kimchi (€ 6.90) that has been freshened up with the broth of fermented crabs - yes, hello! And worst of all, the octopus arm in smoked paprika powder on a cream of black beans and cocoa - it's been a long time since I've eaten something so beautiful that also tasted so good (€ 7.50). The menu changes every two weeks, so I have to go back at least once before then. Summary: A spectacularly beautiful cellar cocktail bar. The Birdyard Bar & Eatery, 8th, Lange Gasse 74 Tel. 01/402 46 24 Tue-Sun 11.30-22 (restaurant), 18-2 (bar)

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