138 GOURMET TRAVELLER
music andjazz festivals, and a characteristically
bold offering from Bach.
He’s the larger-than-life proprietor of the exclusive
Hotel Tannenhof in St Anton and founder of the
annual Kulinarik & Kunst festival of gastronomy
and art. He launched it five years ago as a four-day
fling and now directs a 24-day program centred
on exceptional moments in food and culture.
“I am Kulinarium and Art!” he declares when
we meet at St Anton’s Der Waldhof, one of the
region’s alpine inns with a prodigious talent for
hospitality. We are here for a headline event of the
festival, a 36-head dinner prepared by the three-star
German chef Klaus Erfort. The highlight for me is
an Austrian-Australian production of organic “onsen”
egg, poached at 60°C, with parsley purée and speck,
and topped with shavings of Tasmanian truffle and
caramelised chicken skin. “Just for the umami,”
explains pastry chef Matthias Spurk.
Between Erfort’s trademark langoustine, the turbot
and venison, soufflé and délice – all paired with wines
selected by Paula Bosch, the German-speaking world’s
pre-eminent sommelier – I ask Bach why he conceived
this festival. “Talking to each other, eating together –
it’s the oldest form of culture we have,” he replies.
Good living seems to be programmed into the
Arlberg DNA, a rare and appealing hybrid of
Teutonic thoroughness and southern-European
savoir vivre. Its sophistication belies the accepted
wisdom that the Arlberg is remote and backward.
“There’s a saying in Austria: the narrower thevalley, the narrower the mentality,” says Bach as
we gaze down the scenic Stanzer valley from the
Tannenhof’s sun terrace. “And the Stanzer is one
of the narrowest...”
He exaggerates. This valley is at least as worldly as
it is parochial. St Anton is home to the world’s first
ski school, founded in 1921, and the modern concept
of snow tourism was born here in the 1930s. “There
were visionaries here,” Bach concedes. “This small
village is the cradle of alpine skiing – and that’s
really something.”
For the first-time visitor the Arlberg’s class system
is hard to fathom, chiefly because its six main villages
are all picturesque arrangements of chalet-stacked
valleys, catering to the ultra-rich in maximum style.
(The region claims one of the highest concentrations
of awarded restaurants in Europe: 29 hatted
establishments listed in the Gault Millau guide,
21 of them in Lech-Zürs.)
But, if pushed, locals will offer some handy
shorthand descriptors to help outsiders tell one
idyllic settlement from another. “I can tell you that
the Tyrolean side with St Anton and St Christoph
is preferred by the sporty skiers,” offers Bach, “and
the Vorarlberg side with Lech, Warth and Stuben
is more for the family skiers. The clientele is
absolutely different.”
Florian Werner, owner and host at St Christoph’s
Arlberg Hospiz hotel, is more succinct. “You go with
your family to Lech, your girlfriend to Zürs and to
St Anton with your friends, to ski and to party.”