Publications

Mittendrin – people and recipes from the VinziRast restaurant

Authors: Aleksandra Pawloff, Shahab Jahanbekloo
Publisher: Pichler, Vienna
Content: 197 pages
ISBN: 978-3-85431-726-5
Year: 2016

Former homeless people, students of all nations who wait tables or work in the kitchen, volunteers who provide hands-on support, young and old guests – a community full of life. That’s “mittendrin”, the VinziRast restaurant in Vienna.

Aleksandra Pawloff, photographer and a VinziRast volunteer from day one, portrays the lively diversity of the people who find a job at “mittendrin”. Persian chef Shahab Jahanbekloo combines well-known classics with ingredients from across the globe to create unique dishes: He finishes off Austrian lentils with Brazilian lime, spices up Styrian sheep cheese dumplings with Asian cilantro and uses Moroccan date syrup to add a certain twist to his version of Cannelloni. Vegetarian, vegan, Persian, Indian and Austrian dishes blend to create something completely new. Alongside the recipes, the book also features the life stories of many of the people working at “mittendrin”.

This publication is available at ERSTE Foundation Library.

Florian Bauer

Director Social Finance, Sustainability and Innovation
Since 2023, Florian Bauer has been responsible for social finance, sustainability and social innovation at ERSTE Foundation. Prior to this role, Florian worked in the NGO & Social Entrepreneurship sector for more than 13 years. He led the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), an international multilateral NGO that works to accelerate market-based deployment of renewable energy and energy efficient systems in developing countries, and was Managing Director & COO of the Impact Hub Vienna. From 2020-2023, Florian established strategic alliances with key partners and helped to create innovative semantic technology solutions at Semantic Web Company (SWC), a leading IT company in semantic AI solutions.