The art of the wirt

High in Austria’s Alpine Tyrol region, chefs and wirts — a cross between innkeepers, hosts and landlords — welcome weary walkers to their mountain huts for hearty meals and warm hospitality

- TOM BURSON

Benjamin Parth’s buttermilk and sorrel dish at Stüva restaurant in Ischgl

“Further, further, further! Only three more hours,” yells chef Martin Sieberer. We’re at an altitude of over 6,500ft, hiking through sun-drenched alpine meadows to Almstüberl, an almhütte (mountain hut) where, for the summer, Martin is curating the menu. Beef, speck and vegetables infused with mountain herbs is just the kind of hearty dish you’d hope for in this part of Austria, and it’ll be my first meal on the Kulinarische Jakobsweg, a series of six challenging hikes across the Paznaun Valley. All of them lead to these rustic huts, where, every summer, highly regarded chefs transform the usually simple gastronomy served here into something closer to haute cuisine.

113-year old Friedrichshafener Hütte

“You have to sweat if you want to eat,” shouts Martin. Wearing a checked shirt and intricately embroidered lederhosen, the chef — who’s garnered numerous accolades, including a Michelin star for his Ischgl restaurant Paznaunerstube (he also owns Heimatbühne restaurant, in the same ski resort village) and Austrian Chef of the Year in 2000. Born in Kitzbühel, Martin is a child of the Alps, at home in the peaks of Tyrol. As we wind our way up the trails, he pauses every so often to pluck wildflowers and wild herbs with childlike glee, saving them to cook with later.

“This is augentrost, a herb with which you make a little tincture and put it on the eyes to calm them. It’s medicinal,” he explains. Alpine rose, he tells me, can be used to make a jelly to serve with cheese. He also shows me yarrow, chives and various types of clove.