Clemens Gesser’s rise has been remarkably fast. In the new Gault&Millau Austria guide for 2027, published on 20 October 2026, his Chef’s Table by Gesser in Sillian, East Tyrol, receives 17 points and four toques. Two years ago, in the 2025 edition, he and his team held two toques; last year, the hotel restaurant earned three toques and 15 points. With four toques, the Chef’s Table now ranks among the three highest-rated restaurants in East Tyrol, alongside Ansitz 12 in Lienz and the Gannerhof in Innervillgraten. In total, twelve restaurants in the region hold toques in the new guide.
Eight seats, one surprise menu
The Chef’s Table is the heart of the family-run Hotel Gesser in Sillian, a small market town in the Upper Puster Valley, close to the border with South Tyrol. Since 2023, Clemens Gesser has served his “Alpine Heimatküche” here: up to eight guests share one table right next to the kitchen, from Wednesday to Saturday, and the chef presents every course himself. The only option is a surprise menu of four to seven courses, priced from 117 to 156 euros. His brother Markus Gesser leads the service and the wine as maître.
- Address
- Sillian 164, 9920 Sillian (Austria)
- Nearest Railway station
- Sillian · 300 m
- Also nearby
- Heinfels · 1.6 km
- Sillian market square
- 500 m
- Innsbruck Airport (INN)
- 100 km
Straight-line distances. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
The taste of the mountains
“I want to bring the taste of our mountain landscape to the plate,” Gesser told the East Tyrol tourism blog. His ingredients come from the garden, from the forest and from producers within about two hours’ drive, many of whom he knows personally. Wild mushrooms, berries and spruce tips are foraged and preserved for the whole year, bones and trimmings go into stocks and sauces, and vegetable peels are dried into seasoning powders.
Gault&Millau singles out exactly this consistency. Its inspectors describe a menu that runs from a prawn with its own broth to potato ravioli with lamb heart and a saddle of chamois, and they name the veal sweetbread with hollandaise and a cornetto with blood cream as the strongest moment of the evening. The guide praises the use of offal as a serious commitment to cooking the whole animal.
From the family kitchen to four toques
Clemens Gesser grew up in the hotel’s kitchen, where his grandmother Hildegard and his father Anton cooked before him, and began his apprenticeship in the family business in 2007. At 19, he spent half a year cooking on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. A stint with Norbert Niederkofler at St. Hubertus in Alta Badia shaped his idea of cooking the mountain, and in 2024 he completed his master chef qualification after more than eleven years of training alongside his work, with the chef Philipp Stohner as his mentor. Today he runs the hotel together with his brother Markus.
The Chef’s Table is also listed in the MICHELIN Guide and holds two Falstaff forks. After three Gault&Millau ratings in a row, each better than the last, Austria has a new name to watch. More information and reservations at hotel-gesser.at.
Roger Hohl
Roger Hohl has been at the helm of Luxvisor since 2006. From his base in Switzerland he travels to test what the luxury travel industry promises, from the seat at 40,000 feet to the last course of a tasting menu, and writes about it with an independent eye.
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