You know the feeling when you’ve been out and about all day? Hiking up and down meandering mountain trails and staring at the never-ending views of the Austrian alpine peaks with the sun on your face and the wind in your hair. A lovely day that fills your heart with gratitude and your mind with beautiful memories. Do you know this feeling? Great! Now, there’s only one thing that could possibly make this day even better. What’s that? A delicious vegan three-course dinner, in the middle of the Austrian Alps. At MoaAlm Mountain Retreat, the daily plant based dinner is the perfect way to sum up the day together with our guests. We all gather around our 4 meter (how many feet and inches is that any way?) long dining table and enjoy good conversations, laughter and...delicious, healthy vegan food! Special thanks — Dankeschön — to our plant based chef Boris for creating all these beautiful dishes.
A big part of the MoaAlm experience is the vegan and vegetarian food. We just love cooking and sharing our fresh and healthy dishes with our guests. Many of our ingredients are organically grown and locally sourced. We are lucky that Kals am Grossglockner and the surrounding area has so many independent farmers and food producers. Did you know we also keep a little vegetable garden and grow our own herbs?
But why vegetarian and plantbased food? Because we believe it offers the perfect balance for a healthy body and mind. It also contributes to a sustainable way of living. It perfectly aligns with our idea of ‘relaxingly active’ holidays and we believe it will enrich you in many ways. We love the Austrian Alps, its fauna and flora, and we want to offer a mountain retreat that is in perfect harmony with just that.
Don’t worry, vegan doesn’t mean a strict diet of raw carrots and green smoothies. Let us take you with us while we explore our daily plant based three-course dinners. There’s always plenty for everyone — anyone wants seconds? — and we never leave the table unfulfilled.
Our three-course dinners always start with...a starter! Imagine a fresh marinated carrot salad with roasted tammari almonds, home-made (and gluten free upon request) Russian blini’s with a raw beetroot spread and vegan sour cream or summer rolls with tofu. We keep this part of dinner light, stacked with fresh vegetables and full of pure flavours. Perfect to awaken our guests taste buds and appetite. Did you know that in summer we get these veggies from a service called The Tiroler Gemüsekiste? They weekly deliver boxes full of seasonal vegetables to our MoaAlm door, all grown as locally as possible. What a treat.
We pay special attention to making our vegan meals perfectly balanced. For every dish, we aim for a perfect ratio of healthy whole grains, plant based proteins and nutritious vegetables. We often pick a theme and make all three courses aligned with this theme. For mains, we could have an Indian lentil dhal with roasted cauliflower and home-made chapatis, a Moroccan couscous with sweet potato wedges and a pomegranate topping or a mediterranean buddha bowl loaded with fresh veggies, baba ghanoush and home made falafels. Hungry yet?
Last but not least: the dessert! This is probably the course with which we get to surprise our guests the most. Boris makes small pieces of art, every single time. We use as little refined sugar or processed flour as possible. Instead, we choose wholemeal spelt flour, local pine syrup, fresh fruits and all kinds of roasted nuts (we buy them in bulk). But don’t be fooled: our desserts are super sweet and extremely tasty. These are our all time favourites: raw cherry cheesecake, vegan tiramisu or this fruit crumble with cashew cream. And the best part? There’s absolutely no need to feel guilty, because we’ve been hiking all day!
When our guests ask our plantbased chef Boris — after tasting his delicious dishes — for the recipe, he leaves them with his famous yet frustrating words: “there really is no recipe, I just did something!”. That’s a real chef for you. He mainly takes his inspiration from his frequent traveling all over the world and is especially fond of Indian cuisine. Luckily, we did manage to get some recipes out of him and we love to share them with you. When Boris is off duty, access to the kitchen is granted and we experiment with new vegan recipe ideas. Insider tip: we get our inspiration from chefs like Yotam Ottolenghi or Deliciously Ella and food blogs such as Eat this or Zucker & Jagdwurst. Sophie, our manager, loves to make the vegan mousse au chocolat. It’s a must try!
If you enjoyed this blog, you will love to learn more about our vegan Austrian breakfast too! Or maybe we’ve convinced you by now that an actively relaxing holiday at MoaAlm Mountain— with all its delicious vegan food — is exactly what you need? You can find all information on bookings and accommodations right here.