Eating (and drinking) on holiday — part ii
The best kept secret of Bavarian beer gardens, eating in the Dolomites, and why Aperol spritz is all about context
The first thing to do when entering a Bavarian Biergarten in summer is search for the wood fire. It is easily overlooked, attention lured by heaving counters of sausages and Schweinshaxe (roasted ham hock), sauerkraut and potato salad, but believe me when I whisper that fish is the best thing to eat in a Bavarian Biergarten in summer. Steckerlfisch is a whole fish (usually mackerel, at which my Brittany-centric family balks. ’Where is the access to the sea?!’ Well hey…) spiked onto a wooden stick (‘Steckerl’ in local dialect), propped upright and grilled over a wood fire. You must order it as soon as you sit down for the first beer, as it is made to order and will take 15 to 20 minutes to prepare. Once ready it is weighed (price by the pound), wrapped in a piece of paper, and handed over with a wedge lemon. It looks austere, but it is the best mackerel you’ve ever tasted. It is the thing I look forward to most when we visit family in Bavaria in the summer.
(We each have our fixations. For Thomas it is Leberkäs. Louise makes us chase Weisswurst, which strictly shouldn’t be served after 12pm. Sometimes it can be found. And Max is content as long as there is Apfelschorle. Ordering one is the only thing he knows how to say in German.)
After a few days in Bavaria visiting family we drove to the Dolomites. I was particularly excited about this holiday as it’s been decades since I spent a week in the mountains in summer. It was a toughly negotiated decision.
The drive from Munich to Bolzano is spectacular and lends itself ridiculously well to the game ‘how many castles can you spot.’ I remember a discussion with friends in the States who chuckled grudgingly at the idea that ‘spot the castle’ is a valid car journey game for kids in Europe. It is. But although I grew up with this game (spot the castle, spot the church, spot the cows…), nothing prepared me for the drive through South Tyrol. There are so many fortresses, left and right, perched atop cliffs and promontories, it is possible to miss one in the count. Extraordinary
We spent a week in the village of Carezza, a breathtaking setting, ensconced between the Rotwand of the Rosengarten range on one side and the Latemar on the other, spoilt for choice of day hikes, overnight excursions, crag climbing, via ferratas.
But what is there to eat in a ski resort in summer? The village has just one shop, a tiny but well-stocked mini market, where it is possible to buy all necessary staples (including blister plasters for the hikers), a basic selection of fruit and vegetables, a cheese and cured meat counter, fresh bread. Everything you need for breakfast and picnics and a bowl of pasta.
So most evenings we went out. There is one good pizzeria with a terrace with a view, which serves nothing but good pizzas and, if you look closely enough, a prodigious ‘mixed salad,’ more platter than plate, a meal in itself. The other good restaurant open in summer is Hennenstal which, amid the specialties of grilled meats, also serves hemp fettucini with porcini or steak tartare with burrata — it works!
Though my favourite meal was the pretence for a two-hour walk, following a cowpath high up on slope but still in the meadows, with the Rosengarten as backdrop, to a comically perfect picture of pine trees, grazing cows, wooden tables and parasols nestled below the Vajolet-Türme. Like a staged Alpine set. It’s the Haniger-Schwaige, a restaurant refuge accessible by a much shorter walk when coming from Tiers. We were served within minutes of ordering, gulash soup, gulash with polenta, sausages and roast potatoes, spaghetti bolognese. An irresistibe, enormous Kaiserschmarren. It felt hedonistic for a midday snack, and we still had a good two hours to get home (which, with ‘shortcuts’ and improvisations, turned into four) … Which brings me to the propitiously spotted self-service grappa barrel — a barrel, sheltered by a parasol, with neatly ordered stacks of tiny paper cups, a door, and within it a couple of bottles of homemade grappa. Should you need a digestive shot to help you on your way. — I did.
And finally, a note on Aperol spritz
I have long scoffed at Aperol spritz. Too sweet! Too light. The last time I really enjoyed one was in Venice in 2013 (I know …), sitting in the blinding late November sunshine after two moody days of dank and rain, with a view of Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore across the lagoon, cobblestones underfoot, and a saucer of crisps on the unsteady table. Aperol spritz is entirely about context. I must not have encountered the propitious conditions since then, at least I don’t remember, and Aperol spritz was a drink I had come to avoid. But in the Italian Alps at the height of summer, at the end of an exhilerating day walking across passes and over peaks, when you finally slump onto a wooden bench of that pizzeria with a terrace with a view, Aperol spritz has its place. I tried the Hugo, a (recent) regional Tyrolean specialty, but it forgoes bitterness entirely; Campari is an urban drink, best teased, barely, by an equal amount of soda water and a wedge of lime, savoured with asphalt underfoot. There is no hemming and hawing, I must concede, in this moment, Aperol spritz is the perfect choice.
Aperol spritz down the rabbit hole : The Aperol Spritz is Not A Good Drink & Reclaiming Aperol & The Spritz Is the Ultimate ‘F*ck It’ Drink
Santé !