Cubus

Cubus occupies the entire top floor of the Ars Electronica Center — the glass-clad museum and research centre on the north bank of the Danube whose façade is one of the most distinctive in central Europe. The dining room is a single room of glass on three sides, with views south across the Danube to the Old Town, west toward the Pöstlingberg, and north into the Mühlviertel hills. At dusk, the building's LED façade lights and the river below combine into the most cinematic dining ambience in the city.

The cooking is contemporary Austrian with a polished hotel-restaurant register. Beef tartare with capers and aged parmesan; pike-perch from the Danube with brown butter and parsley root; Mühlviertel pork with Wachau apricot and fennel; an aged duck breast with juniper and beetroot; a Linzer-Torte parfait that the kitchen has been refining since the restaurant opened. The four-course chef's tasting menu is the most appropriate dinner for a serious occasion.

The wine list runs to about three hundred selections with a strong Austrian programme led by Wachau and Burgenland, a German Riesling row, and a substantive Champagne section. The by-the-glass programme is rotated weekly and is unusually deep for a museum restaurant. Service is fluent in English, German and Italian, and runs at a Vienna-trained register.

Cubus is, alongside Verdi and Promenadenhof, one of three rooms that international visitors to Linz will be brought to by their hosts. It is the most architecturally striking; it is the most photographable; and it is, on a non-festival weeknight, surprisingly easy to book on a few days' notice. The terrace, when the weather permits, is among the most-watched outdoor tables in the city.

Cubus is the room for impressing a visiting client whose taste runs to architecture and contemporary design. The Ars Electronica Center setting reframes the meal as part of a cultural evening; the cooking is dependably good without being demanding; the wine list answers any serious order without theatre. It is also the right Linz room for a milestone birthday where the view is meant to be the unmistakable centrepiece.