ACHTUNG: Schnitzel is on the march. From social-magnet Swifty’s on the Upper East Side to hipster-mecca Radegast Hall & Biergarten opening any day in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, gourmands are gobbling up creative new takes on the out-of-fashion Teutonic warhorse.
All right – we exaggerate. But so what if there’s not quite a schnitz blitz out there – yet? In fact, schnitzel is enjoying a budding, overdue revival.
Two great chefs, David Bouley and Kurt Gutenbrunner, put it back on the map. Modern Manhattan schnitzel is upper-crusty at Swifty’s, suavely egg-drenched at T-Bar and marvelously moonscape-breaded at Gutenbrunner’s Wallsé.
It’s simple as can be, crisp on top and pleasingly moist inside, after many decades at Rolf’s. But avoid the one at Heidelberg unless you crave the texture of cardboard along with the sight of lederhosen.
Schnitzel rules the day at Avenue C beer hall Zum Schneider. Watch for Parmesan-crusted lamb schnitzel at soon-to-open Smith on East 10th Street.
The lowly, beloved dish is traditionally a cutlet of veal, pork or chicken, mallet-pounded thin and simply egged, breaded and fried.
It all but vanished from Manhattan once most of Yorkville’s German joints closed. Some schnitzel fans turned to veal Milanese, basically the same dish served on the bone.
Swifty’s chef/partner Stephen Attoe, who turns out his lush, egg-and-anchovy-ornamented Holstein version as a special, links schnitzel’s demise to the belief that German cooking makes one fat. “People who wouldn’t order schnitzel in a German restaurant will happily order it as veal Milanese in an Italian restaurant,” he said.
But even that’s getting hard to find, thanks to modern Italian restaurants with little enthusiasm for a breaded veal chop.
Without a little tweaking, schnitzel can be a snooze. Even Attoe admits, “If I have veal in a restaurant, I’ll get a different veal, not schnitzel. Most places use inexpensive cuts and pound it too thin. It’s like eating shingle off of a roof.”
Yet, wherever schnitzel is done right, people love it. “We sell tons of them,” says Tony Fortuna, owner of thriving new T-Bar on Third Avenue at 73rd Street.
At Wallsé in the West Village, Gutenbrunner says Wiener schnitzel is ordered by up to 40 percent of his customers. I first knew something was up when chef Ben Zwicker’s menu at T-Bar listed “veal schnitzel Holstein” – a dish I hadn’t seen uptown in ages. A “Holstein” is a schnitzel topped with eggs and anchovies. The veal, not paper-thin but hefty enough to retain moisture, renewed my faith in a comfort dish I’d given up for dead.
But T-Bar doesn’t call it “Wiener schnitzel.” Why? “There is no such thing as ‘Wiener schnitzel Holstein,’ ” declares Austrian-born Gutenbrunner. Putting eggs and anchovy on Wiener schnitzel – named for Wien, or Vienna – “is a German invention.”
Like most old favorites, schnitzel invites arguments over the best way to make it. Some insist breaded veal is best served on the bone – “The meat is tastier and less dry than scallopine becomes” when it’s pounded and fried, says Dino Arpaia, owner/executive chef of Midtown’s Cellini. He offers a compellingly tender chop as a special.
But, “I don’t think people care about the bone,” Fortuna says. Others split on whether to use veal loin, top round or leg, and whether to fry it only in butter or in butter and oil.
Schnitzel can be Austrian, German, Italian or “Jewish,” as Sammy’s Roumanian calls its breaded veal.
Arpaia says veal Milanese resulted from “the historic Austrian influence in Lombardy.” Yet, Gutenbrunner claims wiener schnitzel was invented in Italy. Hundreds of years ago, he said, an Austrian feast included veal or pork topped with expensive gold leaf.
“In Italy, they had the idea to replace gold leaf with gold breadcrumbs, and that was the start of Wiener schnitzel,” he said.
What makes Sammy’s veal Jewish? “It’s the way Bubby [grandma] did it,” owner David Zimmerman laughs. But it’s a chop, not a cutlet – doesn’t that make it Milanese? “That would be it,” Zimmerman laughed again. There is a Judaic element – “We use egg and flour and a mix of matzo meal and cracker meal.”
Italian influence turns up at Swifty’s, too, where Attoe sneaks a little Parmesan into veal schnitzel Holstein based on a recipe he learned at the Connaught in London. He grinds bread from Orwasher’s Bakery and seasons it with parsley and Parmesan. Does that Italianize it? “Sort of, but it’s the breading I like for veal, which doesn’t have a lot of flavor when you pan-fry it.”
He places chopped or sieved egg white and parsley “around the outside of the plate, to make it look as if it’s sitting on a cushion of sorts,” and crosses a pair of anchovies atop the veal. The toothsome, lush result is worlds removed from the flavorless cliché.
Gutenbrunner’s Wallse masterpiece is the unadulterated Viennese classic made sublime by technique – a frenzy of deep-frying in butter and canola oil. I watched him shake the pan so furiously, I feared the rising foam would erupt and scald everyone in the kitchen.
The resulting aeration yielded breading both irregular and crisp, with tiny hollows and ridges that produce a candylike effect on the tongue – just the thing with a side of lingonberries. If the old German places had done it as well, maybe schnitzel would not have gone into hibernation.