Now Serving | The Art of Knödel

Zipora Fried is not afraid of repetition. As an artist, she is best known for her large, labor-intensive abstract drawings, which she covers in silvery thickets of rapid pencil strokes. One drawing may take weeks to complete. Now she has turned her manual skills to making a dizzying array of dumplings. Unusual pastime, you say? Not for this Israel-born, Vienna-raised, New York-based artist who, after a well-received solo exhibition last year, decided to do something about her longing for food from Austria. A schnitzel’s throw from Schiller’s, her new cafe on Rivington Street is the perfect respite from early spring crowds.Since the heart of Kinski’s Czech-Austrian menu is the humble dumpling, or knödel, served up savory or sweet, it’s a pleasant surprise to see that it’s not about the same protagonist gussied up in various disguises. The sweet-cheese knödel, for instance, is made of soft farmer’s cheese (not unlike ricotta) that has been steamed and rolled in spiced bread crumbs. The apricot and the nougat knödel, although similar on the outside, reveal their respective sweet centers with a gentle slice of a fork. Toward the savory end of the spectrum, the finger-thick strands of the schupfnudeln are in essence billowy, pan-fried gnocchi with rosemary and a touch of lemon.

Open nearly half a day every day (weekdays from 10 a.m to 10 p.m. and weekends 11 a.m. to midnight), the restaurant’s all-day breakfast options include kaiserschmarren — the emperor’s pancakes — which differ from American pancakes in that whipped egg whites are folded into the batter. Just as the pancake begins to brown in the skillet, it is ripped into plump pieces, dusted with powdered sugar and accompanied by plum preserves. The eggs sunny-side up, served on buttered sunflower bread with salty slices of speck, are so simple and delicious that they remind one how good fried eggs and runny yolks are.

Andreas Goller, the 24-year-old Austrian at the helm of the kitchen, works with an impressive attention to detail considering Kinski’s small menu. A traditional Austrian soup looked like an edible snow globe: cubed carrots and a plump semolina dumpling in the center of a bowl of clear broth swirling with minced chives. When was the last time you hesitated to spoon up a soup because it was pleasure to look at?

That handsome simplicity extends to the space as well. Because the chef grew up in the Alpine landscape of Tyrol, Fried took the interiors of rustic Bohemian lodges as her design inspiration. In lieu of heavy oak and country kitsch is bare plywood that wraps from floor to wall to ceiling, giving Kinski a frank sense of space. A few vintage Thonet chairs and a string of light bulbs covered in gilt wire cages lend the cafe the faintest hint of fin de siècle warmth. Klaus Kinski, the star of Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo,” would have approved of both its nature and name. Although Fried chose the restaurant’s moniker simply because it was an easy-to-pronounce Czech-Austrian name, her cafe’s simple design conjures up Kinski’s early days in Berlin, which were at one point so spartan that his only possessions were fallen leaves.

Kinski is a coffeehouse, too, where one can nibble homemade linzer torte and sip einspänner, a double espresso in a tall glass with a floating ziggurat of whipped cream. A daily selection of specials, hot chocolate, almond cookies or vanilla Florentine crisps round out any meal. With the exception of the goulash and some salami, meat is scarce on the menu. Fried and Goller may soon begin working with a local butcher to make Austrian sausages stuffed with cheese like the ones hawked by street vendors in Vienna, which would be a welcome addition to the starch-centric menu. At the moment there is no liquor license. Fried admits that she has not yet explored that option. But what would sausage be without beer?

Kinski, 128 Rivington Street; (646) 270-9733.