Hubert Pavao Peter – Bruder

My Life

I am 34 years old and was born in Schwarzenberg, Bregenzerwald in Austria. I grew up on a farm surrounded by lots of crafts, handiwork and natural things. After school I started working in gastronomy as the possibilities in the region were plenty. Both tourism and crafts were huge drivers of the local economy, but I decided on a three-year service apprenticeship in 2003 in a hotel called “Post” in Bezau. It was classic gastronomy work and provided me with lots of skills as it was really tough and hands on. The tone in the industry was rough, but I still learned a lot. I don’t wish it on anyone though—it was a lot to learn in a short period of time.

I also learned what not to do later in life. Fair hours and working conditions were far-away dreams, likewise was decent staff food and good team communication. I went on to work in various hotels, such as the Hirschen in Schwarzenberg, Schwanen in Bezau, and Gams in Bezau. It was all standard hotel work—breakfast, lunch, and dinner—very straightforward.

Then I moved to Dornbirn which felt a lot more like a city to me. I worked at Innauer there, which was the first time I got in touch with cocktails and food. The bar was ambitious, and I was first introduced to barbacking then. I stayed at Innauer for three years from 2009 to 2011. Then came a big cut as I wanted to move to either Hamburg, Berlin, or Vienna. Hamburg was my first choice, and I wanted to work in a hotel again, preferably in the F&B department.

“What I really wanted was to fulfil my dream and develop my own concepts and creations.”

Hubert Pavao Peter

I randomly sent F&B Manager applications. In the end, I decided to move to Vienna and help with the opening of a new hotel. It was a big project for Hotel Topazz and Hotel Lamée, lots of ambition, lots of funding, but it was also a bit of a bubble. I stayed there for two years. It felt like an entirely new life with all these new impressions in the big city. There was also a lot of partying, which sometimes made it difficult to balance life and work.

That time also made me realize what I want and what I don’t want. With lots of input from management on one side and staff challenges on the other, you are stuck in the middle and get pushed from both sides, which was a vital but very tough lesson for me. So I decided to turn my back on the hotel industry. The bar in the hotel was ambitious and the team did a lot of their own creations, but I realized I wanted to create things rather than solve problems all day, so I took some time off in order to think clearly.

What I really wanted was to fulfil my dream and develop my own concepts and creations. I then got the opportunity to open up a place called Kussmaul (now called Das Spittelberg). The project was ambitious, they wanted to cook on Michelin-star level, had their own bakery and they were also looking for a Bar Chef.

It was the perfect match, as I wanted to do everything from scratch and the restaurant and concept followed that same philosophy. It worked out very well, was good fun and I was very happy. There was also a very fruitful exchange of knowledge, we tested many new things in a kind of trial-and-error approach and I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted. I stayed there for a bit more than two years from 2014 to 2016.

While cooking was also of interest to me, cooking with liquids turned out to be the big game changer. I had done most of the other things before—cheese sommelier, water sommelier—but cooking with liquids was new back then, and I saw a lot of opportunities for doing something that hadn’t been done before. After Kussmaul I needed a change and decided to open a pop-up. I had the opportunity to set up a bar called Barrikade at night in a place that functioned as a café during the day.

It was also there that I got to know Lucas, my business partner. Lucas was cooking in a place close by and was a regular customer at Barrikade. We quickly became friends. I worked the pop-up for a year and it was right there that the idea came up to open up something together on our own. A decision had to be made to either move back to Vorarlberg or stay in the city, and we started looking for a venue. We finally found Bruder, but it took us a good two years to find it. During that time and also before, during the Barrikade time, I ran projects for a hotel owner, and it was with her help that we were finally able to find the Bruder location. We opened Bruder in January of 2019.

Bruder

We both had undergone conventional gastronomy training and had lots of stories about the craziness of the gastronomy sector. We talked a lot about how we wanted to go forward. We wanted to move away from the usual Gault Millau or Michelin acclaimed restaurant 2.0 and wanted to be free from norms and things that have always been done the way they were done. Our aim was to create our own F&B cosmos. Craftsmanship, working with regional suppliers we know personally, knowing all of our produce. It is indeed a more complicated way to do things, but it’s more honest and results in better quality. Being true to our beliefs was important to us.

Now we have rotovaps, we brew our own beer and produce our own cheese and sausages—just trying out new things. But in the end, everything needs to work out financially as well. It was always important to us to open a place that makes sense. Since it is our own money, running it successfully was pivotal. It was also about making use of food waste and reducing it as much as possible. Therefore, fermenting is also a big thing at Bruder.

Once we found the location, we started renovating the place and did a lot of it ourselves, even though we aren’t talented handymen. While renovating, we were drinking a lot of beer and got to know each other very well as we were shaping ideas on how to work together and what we wanted to achieve. Our focus was on natural wine, having our own wine, prosecco, pet nat, and vermouth.

The community grew and, as mentioned, beer was also a focus. Cider came into play too with our network expanding over time. We even had guests bring in fruit for us to use—everything from apples to berries—which is fantastic. In the end, the staff and guests shape what we do in a way. Our philosophy is not strictly regional, only including Vienna and surroundings, but we also look to Italy for citrus fruits. This is also regional for me. Working regionally and always with a direct connection to suppliers, that’s our core strategy. We go foraging ourselves and hunt mushrooms, which gives me great pleasure, as I can disconnect in nature. Since we ferment in the kitchen and bar, we have a lot of flexibility and can simply focus on a product we used for fermenting.

Bruder is basically a store within a store. That way the sheer variety is fantastic. There are four cocktails and eight long drinks on the menu. But of course, we can also do classics with a twist. For example, we don’t have Campari but we have a substitute which we produce on our own and this is how it works with many other products as well.

Best Bars and Restaurants in Vienna

The Future

The future is happening as we speak. We opened in 2019, which was a normal year, and then Covid hit and everything changed. We were thinking about the future differently before and after the pandemic, as we’ve learned a lot during this difficult time. Bruder started with four people in the beginning and now we are a team of nine. We are trying to be faster, more agile, cheekier even. Don’t calculate every little detail, try out new things—we even expanded during the pandemic and added a section to the restaurant. So dare to try.

We started selling wine and opened a store next door. We invested a lot in wine. Basically, we were ordering wine with suppliers while everybody else was not buying anything at all. You should never lose your youthful foolishness. I would love to sell more of our products, as we do everything ourselves, and also expand the store business. Expanding production of our products in general is another thing, such as cultivating produce from the start and not just ordering from a supplier—going to the very source of everything.

Profile

Year born: 1988

Special skills: The craziness to never sit still and always be on the hunt for something new. When people tell me something is impossible, I will see it as a challenge and prove them wrong.

Free time: We forage and gather ingredients on our own. When the weather is good, I’ll go into the woods around Vienna and look for mushrooms or herbs.

Bartender since: 2014

Biggest fail: Nothing really. Looking back, I am really happy how everything has turned out.

Favourite cocktail: Negroni, but mainly, I love to drink neat.

Check out Peter’s Bruder Negroni

Favourite bar: I’ve never been there but have to say Velvet in Berlin. They have a similar philosophy to Bruder. My all-time favourite is Barred in Rome. They focus on wine though. Also, a bistro that I love is Otto in Bratislava.

Dream: At some point I’d like to have more time for things that I want to do: going back to the roots and starting over again. Managing the place now is also moving me away from the core and the love for why I started it.

Bruder Website

Back to Bar Worldmap

Images: ©Sophie Kirchner & Manuel Haring & Marius Mammerler & Kardelen Ari