A bit of Austria on the Lower East Side

At Café Katja on Manhattan's Lower East Side, liverwurst is served with housemade pickles and German rye bread. (jennifer taylor for the boston globe)

NEW YORK - Regulars are greeted with big smiles and the occasional hug. Café Katja, an Austrian café nestled in the Lower East Side, is like Cheers with an Austrian accent and excellent liverwurst.

"We're a bar with food," says Andrew Chase, who co-owns the cafe with native Austrian Erwin Schrottner. He's being modest. How many bars serve food prepared by two European-trained chefs who are as comfortable executing haute cuisine as making sausages and sauerkraut?

For a year, the two chefs have been wedged inside this shoebox of a space, more modern but just as cramped as the tenements in this neighborhood once were. Today, chic shops and sophisticated restaurants make the area a popular destination.

"When we found the space [for Café Katja], we knew we couldn't do a full-fledged restaurant," says Chase. In the tiny kitchen, the cooks operate with two electric burners, one small oven, and a griddle. But what they also have is a liquor license. So the duo dreamed up something along the lines of an Austrian wine bar with "honest cooking," says Chase, "which would be fun for us and appealing for the neighborhood."

For Schrottner, 34, who's married to an American and has three daughters (after one of whom the café is named), serving up hearty Austrian fare was like going home. He grew up eating beef goulash, bratwurst, spaetzle, sauerkraut, and roasted root vegetables. Born and raised on his family's farm in Graz, Schrottner started apprenticing in restaurant and hotel kitchens when he was 15. After stints in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, he ventured to New York in 1998 and worked on and off with Chase, both at Monkey Bar and the former Mark Hotel, for about eight years.

Chase, 46, was raised in Nantucket by his scallop fishermen parents. After graduating from Clark University, he went to work at a handful of upscale restaurants in New York and spent two years cooking in France. When not in the kitchen, he's an artist of a different sort: Chase welded the cafe's wrought iron sign, and some of his pottery pieces line a shelf inside the restaurant.

When you pull up a seat at the slate-topped bar or at one of the seven tables, begin with the aufschnitt teller, a charcuterie plate consisting of a variety of sliced meats, a ramekin of velvety liverwurst, housemade pickles, and German rye bread. "It's a snack plate, perfect for sharing," says Chase. Also try toasty-warm doughy pretzels, which are imported from Bavaria and served with liptauer, a paprika-seasoned spread made from quark, a soft, unripened cheese, and butter.

Many sausages here are homemade, including the bratwurst and blood sausage. Bernerwurstel - a hot-dog split and stuffed with Emmentaler cheese, wrapped in bacon, and sauteed - is artery-clogging comfort food that is worth trying at least once. Other traditional dishes include goulash with spaetzle (tiny noodle dumplings) and roasted, cured pork belly with quark dumplings. The spaetzle with caramelized onions and melted Emmentaler is wonderfully satisfying, the Austrian equivalent of mac and cheese.

The wine list is heavily Austrian - dry, crisp whites and light-bodied reds - and draft and bottled beers are mostly imports from Germany, Belgium, and Austria. The servers are trained to pour "the Austrian way," says Schrottner, to produce about a two-inch foamy head. "A nice poured beer is an Austrian tradition," he says.

Linzertorte, the traditional ground-nut tart spread with raspberry jam and topped with a lattice crust, is a fine ending. Wash it down with a glass of fruit schnapps or try the more unusual pine-infused zirbenz (liqueur). After a few sips, you might find yourself swaying and singing to Austrian folk songs.

Café Katja, 79 Orchard St., (between Grand and Broome), New York, N.Y., 212-219-9545; www.cafe-katja.com.