Jorg Worther (Retired 2015)

Jorg Worther was born July 8, 1958 in Bad Gastein, Austria.  After graduating from hotel school, he apprenticed at the now defunct Grand Hotel Gasteinerhof in Gastein.  He then moved to Munich to take his first job at the Hotel Sheraton, and in his spare time, volunteered at the Restaurant Tantris.  From there he worked at the Le Cancard Restaurant in Hamburg and in 1981, worked under Chef Eckhart Witzigmann at the Restaurant Aubergine in Munich, Germany.  In 1984 he opened the Grand Hotel de L’Europe in Bad Gastein, at the Vinothek Restaurant.  Three years later in 1987, he opened another hotel, Villa Hiss, also in his home town of Bad Gastein, where he stayed until 1994.  In 1990, he was voted Austria’s “Chef of the Decade” by his peers.

In 1995, he leased the Hotel SchloB Prielau on the Zeller Lake in Zell am See, Austria, where he opened Restaurant Jorg Worther, and by 1997, was awarded four red toques from Gault Millau for the first time, making it one of the top three restaurants in Austria.  The following year in 1998, the Great Chefs television crew showed up to tape Chef Worther for the Discovery Channel’s television series, Great Chefs of the World (episode # 235) and for Austria’s ORF-TV Great Chefs of Austria series.

In 2001, Chef Worther collaborated with designer FA Porsche, on a new set of chef’s knives called the CHROMA Chef’s knife series.

Three years later, with his restaurant lease expired, he closed Restaurant Worther and tied up with Dietrich Mateschitz, founder of Red Bull, to open in 2005, the Carpe Diem Finest Fingerfood in Salzburg.  He retired in 2007.  In 2014, he opened Restaurant Ceconi in Salzburg, but retired, this time for good, in mid-2015.