Paul Stradner will open 1839 Malerhaus in Achern in 2027
The Austrian chef keeps his two-star kitchen at Villa René Lalique in Alsace and hands the daily running of a restored house from 1839 to the Swiss chef Julian Schmid.
Paul Stradner, the Austrian chef who holds two Michelin stars at Villa René Lalique in Alsace, will open his first restaurant of his own in the first quarter of 2027: 1839 Malerhaus, in the centre of Achern, in Baden-Württemberg.
The project was announced on 22 September. The restaurant will occupy a house at Hauptstraße 104 that was built in 1839 as a home with a workshop and later belonged to a family of painters, which explains the name. It counts among the oldest buildings in Achern and has been extensively restored and converted for restaurant use, with a garden for outdoor tables.
Stradner is not leaving France. He remains head chef at Villa René Lalique in Wingen-sur-Moder, whose restaurant has held two stars since 2017. In Achern the kitchen will be run by Julian Schmid, a Swiss chef and long-time colleague who, as executive chef, shares responsibility for the cooking with him. According to GaultMillau, Schmid was previously sous chef at Ammolite in Rust. At Villa René Lalique, the sous chefs Alejandro Moyo and Louis Feger stay on.
In Achern the star will depend less on the name on the door than on the chef at the stove.
Why Paul Stradner is returning to Baden
The region is familiar ground. From 2012 to 2017 Stradner was head chef at Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa in Baden-Baden, where he took the fine-dining restaurant to two Michelin stars, and he has lived with his family in nearby Bühl for years.
"I have been closely connected to the region for many years, professionally and privately," Stradner said in the announcement. In the 1839 Malerhaus, he added, he has found a special, historic site where he can put his ideas about cooking and hospitality into practice.
A Michelin target before a menu
The ambition is stated openly: according to the Schwäbische Zeitung, Stradner wants to take the restaurant into the Michelin star universe as quickly as possible. What has not been published is almost everything a diner would ask first: the menu, prices, number of seats and an exact opening date. The restaurant's website says the team is still in the planning phase and is hiring.
Achern lies in the Ortenau, a wine area known for Riesling and Spätburgunder between the Rhine and the Black Forest. The opening adds a name to a German fine-dining scene mapped this month by the Falstaff restaurant guide for Germany, while across the border Villa René Lalique stands in a region that has just brought in an Alsace harvest that ended better than feared.
Running two kitchens in two countries is not new at this level, but it shifts the weight onto the second in command. In Achern, how soon a star arrives will depend largely on Julian Schmid.
