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Breakfast served at the Carpe Diem Lounge-Cafe at Hangar-7 in Salzburg, Austria on January 21, 2014.

Dining at Ikarus Restaurant in Salzburg you could be forgiven for thinking you're somewhere else. The gourmet restaurant inside Hangar-7, a unique art and museum complex near the airport, lures all-star kitchen captains from around the world. One month it's Singapore's André Chiang. The next month it's Spain's Paco Perez. Overseeing these transitions and tracking down the Bresse pigeon or spring onions is executive chef Martin Klein.

Klein shares his favourite things about the Austrian mountain town with Karan Smith. And while there's plenty to eat on his list, there's nary a Mozart or The Sound of Music reference in sight. So put those wimples away

Carpe Diem

"Getreidegasse is like the Champs-Élysées of Salzburg. On this street you have a really good restaurant, Carpe Diem Finest Fingerfood. You're in a good atmosphere. It's right in the city centre of Salzburg. They have two levels. On the first level, they serve the menu as finger food. There's no plate and no cutlery. It's really uncomplicated. The second level is fine dining. You get classical, Austrian food prepared in a really good way." Getreidegasse 50, carpediemfinestfingerfood.com

Hangar-7

"Hangar-7, near the Salzburg Airport, is a beautiful museum. There's an art gallery, café, bar and outdoor lounge. And it's the home base of the Flying Bulls, a historic aviation fleet and a collection of Formula 1 race cars. The museum is free. We have sometimes 2,000 or 3,000 visitors on one day." Wilhelm-Spazier-Str. 7A, hangar-7.com

Dollerer

"In Golling, maybe a 30-minute drive from here, we have Dollerer's, which is a beautiful restaurant in the Geniesser Hotel. This is one chef, Andreas Dollerer. He has two different restaurants. Dollerer's Wirtshaus is really traditional Austrian food sourcing forgotten dishes from the grandparents' era. On the other side, Geniesser Restaurant, is fine dining." Am Marktplatz 56, Golling, doellerer.at

Ski in Schladming

"All around is beautiful mountains, less than an hour away. We have six to eight different mountains with hundreds of kilometres of skiing pistes. Schladming [in nearby Styria province] is really famous. They already had the World Cup. If you don't want to go down the same piste twice, you have a lot of possibility." 56A Rohrmoos St. Schladming, skischladming.com; skiamade.com

Country restaurants

"What's good in Austria is that you can go everywhere for local food. In a normal restaurant for lunch, for €25 [$38] or €30, you can have a really good lunch. It's traditional, well prepared, respectful to the products, cooked the old way from the mother or the grandmother. You don't have much fast food here."

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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