Javier Mancilla and Xaver Kislinger have a fixed location for their catering projects in Vienna — and are extremely satisfied with it. In the small restaurant of the St. Charles pharmacy in Mariahilf, they run the Döner Brutal snack bar, and in a new building, they opened Café Florida.

“We were lucky that we found a location and were able to do what we want,” says Kislinger, who, like Mancilla, had previous experience with pop-up projects. At an off-location, they temporarily opened their “Bar Brutal”, together with the team from friendship.is behind the “concrete kitchen”, Javier used to play on some empty alleys. They now pay rent on a regular basis and are constantly implementing their culinary concept in the rooms.

In conservative Austria, there are too many standards and requirements for spontaneous, mobile projects, they both regret: That limits ideas. “You have to think carefully about what you're doing. Have a concept that goes hand in hand and stands behind it, pays people in the kitchen fairly, then a lot of people have to come to the shop so that it works out financially,” says Kislinger about the big steps you have to take if you want to raise something seriously and not just pursue a fun project.

Mobile cooking collectives liven up the whole scene, they both agree. “A lot more needs to be done and there are enough people to do something about it. But you also have to let them do it.” Your projects are now location-bound. But that is not a hindrance to thinking out of the box. Doner kebab in a pharmacy? It can certainly be described as a culinary experiment. Improvisation and constant reinvention are an integral part of their work. And so your restaurant remains fluid in a certain sense despite the fixed location.

What it isn't: taken off. “There are also simple things that can be cool and good,” Kislinger clarifies. Which brings him and Mancilla to talk about what makes a tavern. Namely, simple, reliable cuisine, for example. “You want to know what you're getting” — a sentence that applies to here and there, both for established hosts and for Kislinger and Mancilla's approach.

‍

Javier Mancilla and Xaver Kislinger, operators of Döner Brutal at St. Charles Alimentary in Vienna