Empowered vegetable cuisine meets Bitcoin

Sternekoch Sebastian Frank. Bild von Robert Schlesinger, alle Rechte bei ihm, für diesen Artikel zur Verfügung gestellt.

The Berlin restaurant Horváth is the first Michelin-starred restaurant where you can pay with Bitcoin. Chef and owner Sebastian Frank discusses how he decided to do this—and what his „emancipated vegetable cuisine“ entails.

Sebastian Frank is a Michelin-starred chef, 42 years young—and perhaps a typical representative of a new generation of Bitcoiners.

The Austrian has been cooking since he was 14 years old and moved to Berlin for love. There, in 2010, he became the head chef at the restaurant Horváth, which he and his wife took over in 2014. The name fits well, almost too well.

The restaurant is named after the Hungarian writer Ödön von Horváth, who also lived in Austria and Germany, and after a few magnificent, eternally readable works, was tragically killed in Paris by a falling tree branch. The Horváth restaurant stood for a more refined Austrian cuisine, to which Sebastian gradually added influences from the Pannonian region, a mix of Austrian and Hungarian flavors.

By now, Sebastian Frank has earned two Michelin stars. The guiding principle of his restaurant is the „emancipated vegetable cuisine.“ As one of the first Michelin-starred chefs ever, he began cooking mainly vegetarian dishes. „It was because of the location,“ he laughs, „But not because there are so many ecological people living in Berlin, but because it is difficult to get fresh, high-quality meat here. However, there’s plenty of quality vegetables growing in the surrounding area.“

Dining area in the Horváth restaurant. Image by White Kitchen Studios, all rights reserved to them, made available for this article.

In the emancipated vegetable cuisine, vegetables are treated equally to meat or fish. A radish is as valuable as caviar; celery as noble as Parmesan. „As an Austrian, I also decided to work only with products that are common in Austria. So, for instance, pumpkin seed oil instead of olive oil, plums instead of mangos, and so on. I call it ‚creativity through censorship‘.“

Bitcoin maximalists might find this concept familiar: The restriction to a single cryptocurrency—Bitcoin—and the abstinence from gambling, trading, and speculation foster creativity, inspire deep monetary education, and strengthen the resolve to hold decisively. Not getting side-tracked is often the first step to effectiveness.

„I sold my entire portfolio, all altcoins, stocks, and went completely into Bitcoin.“

Chef Sebastian Frank came to Bitcoin only in mid-2020. „It was quite classic. Due to COVID, the restaurant was closed, and I started investing in stocks and, without much thought, also added a Bitcoin position to the portfolio.“ At that time, he knew hardly anything about it. Only when the price dropped significantly and he was about to sell, he decided to learn about Bitcoin before ditching the coins—and then fell into the familiar rabbit hole, from which one doesn’t emerge the same.

„I listened to podcasts, one after another, and gradually, it gripped my own life. I found answers to questions I had never understood before. Like, how it used to be possible for one person to work, and both could live in a house; my wife and I are doing well, but we have to work very hard for our standard of living.“ Delving into Bitcoin helped him understand the monetary system better.

Potato tagliatelle with onion foam and whitefish caviar. Image by René Riis, all rights reserved to him, made available for this article.

Selling was now, of course, out of the question. On the contrary, Sebastian took decisive action, and his wallet followed suit: „I sold my entire portfolio, all altcoins, stocks, and went completely into Bitcoin.“ Now, of course, not through financial products in a trading app, but directly, with real Bitcoins, securely stored in a hardware wallet. He buys regularly; when the price falls, he doesn’t worry but rejoices because it’s so affordable.

Eventually, the idea arose to not only buy Bitcoins but to earn them. That would be the simplest and, in some way, the most authentic approach. Through a podcast, he learned about the payment service provider Lipa, which managed payments for the hospitality industry at the BTC2023 in Innsbruck. „I can do that too,“ thought Sebastian and contacted the event organizers to cook at the conference in the future, only to learn that, unfortunately, it wouldn’t take place in 2024.

However, he integrated Lipa into his restaurant, where one can now pay with Bitcoin either on-chain or via Lightning. Now, Sebastian is the world’s first 2-star chef to accept Bitcoins. His goal is to keep the coins in a business wallet and, in the future, try to establish Bitcoin in the mainstream, for example, through savings plans or bonuses for employees.

So, if you’re in Berlin and feel like having an excellent and not entirely inexpensive meal—or want to give a voucher for such—and pay for all of it with Bitcoin, you now know where to go.