Boiled beef brisket served with the cooking broth, root vegetables, horseradish cream and apple-and-horseradish relish. Austria-Habsburg-via-Zurich.

Tafelspitz crossed into Zurich from the Habsburg court via the bourgeois dining rooms of Vienna in the late nineteenth century. Kronenhalle made it part of the Zurich canon when Hulda Zumsteg added it to her menu in the 1930s, served with the same horseradish cream and apple relish that Viennese cooks used. Today it is one of the dishes most associated with Kronenhalle, the brisket cooked low and slow in a master stock that the kitchen has rebuilt across generations. The Zurich service still includes the bone-marrow toasts on the side, a Habsburg-court touch.

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Make it at home

Serves 64 hrIntermediate

Ingredients

  • 1.8kg piece of beef brisket point (Tafelspitz cut; the tail end of the silverside) or beef shin
  • 1 onion, halved (skin on) and burnt cut-side down in a dry pan for colour
  • 2 large carrots, 1 leek, 1/4 celeriac, 1 parsley root, all roughly chopped
  • 1 bouquet garni (bay leaf, thyme sprigs, parsley stalks, 6 peppercorns)
  • 2L cold water plus 1L good beef stock
  • 2 tsp sea salt
  • For horseradish cream (Apfelkren and Sahnekren): 100g fresh horseradish root, finely grated, divided
  • Sahnekren: 250ml double cream whipped to soft peaks, 50g grated horseradish folded in, 1 tsp white wine vinegar, salt to taste
  • Apfelkren: 1 large tart apple (Boskoop), grated
  • with 50g grated horseradish
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp caster sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • For service: 4 medium waxy potatoes (boiled, sliced 1cm), 4 medium carrots (cooked whole in the broth), 1 bunch chives finely snipped, marrow bones cut crosswise (optional but classic Kronenhalle touch)

Method

  1. Bring 2L cold water to a hard boil in a wide heavy pot. Plunge the brisket in for 60 seconds, drain, rinse off the surface scum. Discard the water and rinse the pot.
  2. Return the brisket to the clean pot with the burnt onion halves, the chopped root vegetables, the bouquet garni, salt and the beef stock. Top up with cold water just to cover.
  3. Bring to a low boil, immediately reduce to a bare simmer (surface should barely shimmer), skim the foam carefully for the first 20 minutes.
  4. Simmer uncovered for 2 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours, topping up with hot water if the meat threatens to break the surface, until a long fork goes through the brisket with minimal resistance.
  5. If using marrow bones: roast them at 200 degrees Celsius in the oven for the last 15 minutes until the marrow is just shimmering.
  6. Lift the brisket out carefully, rest on a warm plate covered loosely. Strain the broth into a clean pot; reduce 5 minutes to concentrate slightly. Check seasoning.
  7. Slice the brisket against the grain into 1.5cm slabs.
  8. Plate each portion: a slab of brisket, a heap of warm sliced potato, a carrot, a generous ladle of clear broth across all of it.
  9. Serve with the horseradish cream and the apple relish in small bowls on the side, and a marrow bone if using. Scatter chives across the broth.

Editor tip. The blanching-then-rinsing step is the difference between a clear Kronenhalle broth and a cloudy one; do not skip. Hold the broth at the barest tremor for the full cooking time; a rolling boil emulsifies fat and clouds the broth permanently.

Common allergens: Milk.