Forthuber in Gstaig

Where the Food Comes From

In the Inn Valley region of Upper Austria, the distance between farm and plate is short by geography and even shorter by intention. Forthuber in Gstaig, which opened in spring 2025, anchors its entire menu in the seasonal produce of its immediate surroundings. That commitment to local sourcing is not a marketing footnote here, it shapes what appears on the menu each week and, by extension, what you can expect to eat on any given visit. The kitchen works with what the season offers, which means the menu shifts as the year moves, and diners returning across different months will rarely encounter the same plate twice.

This approach to ingredient-led cooking has been gaining ground across Austrian regional dining for some years. Restaurants like Kräuterreich by Vitus Winkler in Sankt Veit im Pongau and Obauer in Werfen have long demonstrated that regional sourcing, when done with discipline, produces cooking with a clarity that more cosmopolitan kitchens struggle to replicate. Forthuber in Gstaig enters that conversation from a more informal register, but the underlying philosophy is the same: the land around the restaurant defines what ends up on the plate.

The Setting at Gstaig 1

The address, Gstaig 1, places the restaurant in a small hamlet outside Feldkirchen bei Mattighofen, a town in the Mattigtal district of Upper Austria. Approaching the building, the atmosphere reads as rural Austria without affectation: a proper country house setting with a garden shaded by established trees. In summer, tables move outside into that garden, with a gazebo available for larger gatherings or private occasions. The shade and stillness of the outdoor setting make it a noticeably different experience from the dining rooms of, say, Steirereck im Stadtpark in Vienna or Ikarus in Salzburg, both operating at the top of Austria's formal dining hierarchy. Forthuber occupies a quieter, more grounded register.

Inside, the room is arranged around a long table positioned in front of a decorative wine cabinet, a configuration that works well for larger parties and lends the space a convivial, unhurried character. The service is described as friendly and competent, which in a rural setting often means attentive without being formal. Guestrooms are available nearby for those making a longer stay of it, a detail that aligns Forthuber with the broader category of Austrian Landgasthof, the country inn format that combines eating, drinking, and lodging in a single rural destination.

The Menu Structure

The format at Forthuber is unusually accommodating for a kitchen operating at this level of sourcing discipline. Diners choose between two set menus, one hearty, one lighter, or opt for à la carte. That three-way structure gives the kitchen a way to manage seasonal produce efficiently while giving guests genuine flexibility. The heartier menu likely skews toward the richer, more substantial traditions of Austrian country cooking; the lighter option positions the restaurant as accessible to guests who want seasonal precision without the weight of a full tasting progression.

Lunch is often the most accessible entry point. Wallet-friendly pricing at lunch in a kitchen that sources carefully is a combination that rural Austrian restaurants have historically handled well, and it places Forthuber in a different competitive tier from the €€€€ formal establishments, places like Landhaus Bacher in Mautern an der Donau or Gourmetrestaurant Tannenhof in Sankt Anton am Arlberg, while drawing on a comparable commitment to Austrian produce and seasonality.

The restraint of working within local and seasonal parameters, as seen at restaurants like Ois in Neufelden and Schwarzer Adler in Hall in Tirol, rewards kitchens that can translate ingredient quality into composed, balanced plates rather than relying on imported luxury goods to carry the cooking.

Upper Austria's Emerging Regional Table

Feldkirchen bei Mattighofen sits in a part of Austria that rarely appears in international food coverage, which tends to concentrate on Vienna, Salzburg, and the alpine resort belt. But the Inn and Mattig valleys have a strong agricultural foundation, and that foundation supports exactly the kind of cooking Forthuber is building: seasonal, local, honest. Upper Austria's dining scene has historically operated in the shadow of Salzburg's more tourist-visible restaurant culture, but a generation of younger cooks returning to or staying in the region has quietly shifted the quality threshold of what rural Upper Austrian restaurants can offer.

For visitors building a wider picture of the region's dining options,

What connects them to a place like Forthuber is the underlying discipline: a kitchen that knows what it wants to cook and builds its sourcing program to support that intention, rather than building menus around what suppliers push.

Planning Your Visit

Forthuber in Gstaig is a spring 2025 opening. The lunch format is the most accessible entry point for first-time visitors, both in terms of price and format length. The garden and gazebo make summer visits particularly well-suited for groups or occasions that benefit from outdoor space. Guestrooms nearby mean an overnight visit is feasible for those travelling from Salzburg or further afield. Given the rural location at Gstaig 1 outside Feldkirchen bei Mattighofen, arriving by car is the practical choice.