Penzión na Trojici

The restaurant & setting. Martin Novák arrives in the beautiful town of Banská Štiavnica, a place that, as he puts it, pulls you straight into times long past. His goal is to revive the faded glory of Penzión na Trojici, a venue right in the historic centre, named after Holy Trinity Square (Námestie Svätej Trojice). It works as both a guesthouse and a restaurant, full service under one roof. The owner started it after the revolution and the place has been running for roughly 25 years. From the outside it is not bad, only the banner is, in Martin's words, a bit pitiful.

The people. The owner and at the same time head chef is Štefan Marko, whom everyone calls Števo (and around town, Pišta). He has five children and dreams of them taking over one day. His partner Mirka runs the bar and the floor. There are two cooks in the kitchen: Jano has been here ten years, Andrej about five. Andrej is 39, single, and at home keeps a small Yorkshire terrier and a chameleon named Rudko. Both cooks have a drinking problem, yet Štefan claims he has tried 25 cooks in five years and these two were the best of them.

Why they called Martin. The place sits empty and Štefan cannot figure out why people do not come. On one side are cooks who drink even at work, on the other is the owner himself, a despot who hurls insults at the staff and the waitresses. „He swears at people terribly," says Jano. Martin sums it up plainly: „On one side are guys who drink, and the other thing is that the owner is simply a despot."

The first visit. Martin sits down as an ordinary guest and orders across the menu. What he gets sends him straight back to the nineties: chicken breast baked with peach and cheese, pancakes filled with ham and cheese, an overcooked risotto he calls „matter" you could have built the Štiavnica ramparts with, and a salad served under hot pasta. The high point is a dessert called Horúce pokúšanie (Hot Temptation), shop-bought ice cream, whipped cream and topping with two wafer sticks. „Banská Štiavnica, a beautiful town, a beautiful history and a sorry kitchen," is how Martin closes the visit.

The diagnosis. Martin sits the team down and says it straight: the dishes are a throwback to the eighties and early nineties, and this is exactly why the restaurant sits empty. He confronts Štefan about his despotism and the cooks about the alcohol, with Andrej admitting he is not fully cured. The town's atmosphere piles on too: envy, gossip and intrigue between the businesses. „And something must be wrong," Martin presses Štefan to finally admit where the heart of the problem lies.

The reset. Martin makes some hard calls. He sends Andrej home for two weeks to think about whether he wants the job, and lays down a firm rule: no alcohol at the workplace. When Andrej returns, Martin gives him a second chance, but a breathalyser shows 1.5 per mille and a disappointed Martin lets him go. So the kitchen does not stay without a pro, Martin brings in a new head chef, a friend of his named Andrej, whose risotto is „a whole different story" and who makes it a condition that he will not cook where people drink. Martin also teaches Štefan the basics, for instance that his mashed potato is „glue", and shows him the sous vide technique.

New concept & menu. There is no big rebrand, because the restaurant was pretty and cosy, but Martin adds a modern new banner, finally launches a working website and brings in a photographer to shoot the dishes. The biggest change is on the plate: a modern new menu offers smoked trout with French sour cream, a long-cooked oxtail broth with rillette, celery gratin with blue cheese, sous vide chicken suprême with sweet potato purée, beef cheeks braised in red wine, and desserts such as poached pear, brownie and white chocolate cheesecake. Štefan is moved: „Until now I thought I knew how to cook well, and now I am realising I am probably an amateur."

The big night. The evening service gets off to a rough start. Hot starters stand around and go cold, two guests wait an hour and a half for their mains, and the floor heads toward collapse. Štefan finds himself under pressure and tastes „his own medicine" as people shout at him in the stress, exactly the way he used to shout at his own people. Bit by bit the team finds its rhythm, Jano turns in what Martin calls his best performance, and Mirka saves the evening with her work on the floor. „It took very little and the whole thing would have collapsed today. Only Mirka saved it," Martin says. The place was full and the guests enjoyed the modern food.

One month later. The classic one-month return does not happen in this episode, but the closing narration sums up how it turned out. Štefan stopped tolerating alcohol in the kitchen entirely. Jano, however, went back to drinking and was let go. Andrej, the one who once blew over the limit, came back instead and, by Štefan's account, is holding on and not drinking, even though he never went into treatment. The new cook stayed at the restaurant and helped put together the new menu, though he also pursues his own projects. The guesthouse was closed over the holidays and has been ready for customers again since March.

Verdict: In the first season Martin awards no knife rating, he judges in words. From him it is cautious optimism: the kitchen stabilised through a hard night and began working as one team, Štefan was given a lesson about his own behaviour and about the craft, and the place gained a modern menu, a website and a banner. „I firmly believe that if they follow the path I showed them, they can become number one," Martin says as he leaves. The turnaround's success therefore rests not on a single day, but on whether Štefan stays the course.