Penzión Anesis

The restaurant & setting. Martin arrives in the spa town of Turčianske Teplice, where a family runs a guesthouse and restaurant called Anesis, right across the road from the aquapark. They lease the place and stay open year-round, but off-season the restaurant sinks deep into the red. The very first look at the interior unsettles Martin: cheap-looking chandeliers and over-sweet décor that „evoke a patisserie" to him, while the dessert display case stands empty.

The people. It is a family business. The mother runs the restaurant, the father Martin handles reception because he is in a wheelchair and a haemophiliac who, for two years, has been unable to get back on his feet after bleeding into his knee. Son Matej is a trained head waiter from a hotel academy, his girlfriend Lucka waits tables, and daughter Veronika, who skipped university, is the kitchen helper. The cooking is led by head chef Igor, assisted by cook Paolo.

Why they called Martin. Veronika made the call because the business is deep in the red, having racked up about 20,000 euros in losses over four and a half months, with the family going two months without pay. Veronika has worked entirely for free for three months, out of love for her family, and fears they will lose the guesthouse, her parents' dream.

The first visit. Martin opens the menu and cannot believe his eyes: tiger prawns, salmon, duck, rice noodles, plus a steak wrapped in 24-carat gold for 40 euros. „I don't know if I've arrived in Thailand or in Turčianske Teplice," he quips, eventually counting around 80 dishes. The fish, passed off as fresh, comes out of the freezer, the duck breast is overcooked to dryness with skin as thick „as armour", and the gold steak strikes him as kitsch. The one bright spot is a rabbit leg he praises as well-seasoned and balanced.

The diagnosis. The root cause is clear: the family tries to please everyone, so they keep an unmanageable menu and thousands of euros of ingredients rotting in the freezers, which are also a mess and undated. In the cold store Martin erupts when he finds whole packs of meat with no labels at all. His harshest words, though, are for the father: he tells him he is „an unbelievably passive owner" who just sits there while his daughter has sacrificed the most for the place. He publicly honours Veronika and offers her his respect, moving the whole family to tears.

The reset. That same evening Igor starts cleaning the kitchen on his own initiative, and the others gradually join him. The next day the kitchen is set the task of cooking every single dish on the menu, so everyone can see the absurd volume for themselves. Martin calls in his friends from gastrokuchyne.sk, has the interior fully reworked and brightened, swaps out the lamps and the tableware, and gives Veronika a dishwasher so she no longer has to scrub plates by hand. For the father, a passionate hockey fan, he arranges a surprise from the Banská Bystrica hockey players: a year-round season pass with a promise that he will come to the rink without his wheelchair.

New concept & menu. With no rebrand but an entirely new philosophy of simplicity, Martin cuts the menu from 80 dishes down to roughly 17 items. He shows the family new dishes built on local produce: a cold cucumber soup with crème fraîche, grilled young beetroot with blue cheese and pear, eggs Benedict, chicken breast with asparagus and pea purée, braised pulled beef with horseradish, and Slovak cheese from their own garden. „In simplicity there is beauty," he sums up the whole change.

The big night. During the live service, however, it becomes clear the team is not yet in sync. Under pressure Veronika breaks down in tears and Martin has to lift her „chin up", the kitchen gets swamped, orders get mixed up, and the system, in Martin's words, simply collapsed. The guests, among them hockey players in full gear, are happy with both the food and the setting, but the backstage is all chaos and stress. Martin leaves with very mixed feelings and reminds Igor how a chef should run a kitchen.

One month later. Martin returns with misgivings, but is pleasantly surprised by almost everything. The gold steak is gone, the menu is slimmed down, the father has got on his feet with crutches and even made it to the rink. He tastes a homemade duck pâté on brioche, an excellent Caesar salad with house dressing, and a tenderloin with a homemade dumpling drenched in butter, for which „he would order the dish just for that". His only minor complaint is an unpeeled pear in the dessert.

Verdict: The transformation from 80 dishes and a gold steak to a slimmed-down menu is, in Martin's words, the biggest he has seen so far, so he awards Penzión Anesis 3 knives, with a promise to return for the fourth once Igor fine-tunes the individual dishes.