Carmelo Greco – the best Italian ‘place’ in Germania?

Don’t you have that single restaurant where you always feel at home? People taking care of you? Splendid food? Yes, I think everyone of us foodies has that second living room, somehow, somewhere.

Mine is fortunately in Frankfurt, my hometown. It’s an Italian ‘place’, well, Italian in the best sense when it comes to hospitality with natural warmth. It’s Carmelo Greco’s new Ristorante in Sachsenhausen:

Continue reading

Anders Superior – classic but anders (different)!

To be independent is strong urge for young and aspiring chefs, but very often, especially in Germany, the financial obstacles seem to be insurmountable. It’s too well known that high-end restaurants are hardly profitable and that one needs some cross-subsidizing from other sources, be it a regional restaurant, hotel rooms or catering. Some German chefs have even managed to create a personal brand building on their TV presence and popularity – needless to say, the Lafers or Schuhbecks are good chefs but their emphasis is not only on their Michelin-starred outlets.

Anders auf dem Turmberg

Continue reading

Tramin: The Talented Mr Schimkowitsch

Bistronomic restaurants are seldom to be found in Germany – besides the meanwhile established and Michelin-starred Weinsinn and the Schaumahl in Offenbach along with some newer concepts in Berlin the German gastronomic ladder is missing some intermediate steps that could facilitate the climb-up, especially for younger and less experienced but interested diners.

Tramin Exterior

Continue reading

Can Roca – Less Magical

”There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight. In time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across. However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water.“

Continue reading

Christian Scharrer: (German) Rusticality Refined

Travemünde has more to offer than the fabulous two star La Belle Epoque where chef Kevin Fehling is at the forefront of a new generation of young German to be aware of. Literally across the street, the A-Rosa Grand SPA Resort and its gourmet restaurant Buddenbrooks offer a quite different take on fine dining, yet not necessarily a worse one.

The Chef

Here, Christian Scharrer impressively proves that he is back on the block, maybe even stronger than ever. After his formidable time at the Schloßhotel Bühlerhöhe where he was awarded 18 points in the Gault Millau and also elected chef of the year 2005 he somehow needed a break in the Frankfurt Airport Club before he started at the AROSA two years ago.

Christian Scharrer

Another great chef from Baden, Scharrer grew up with his grandparents having a local restaurant (“Gasthaus”) and a small farm so that his way into gastronomy was kind of pre-determined. A couple of important chefs are on his CV: his first post was at the Colombi hotel in Freiburg where Alfred Klink served as a tough but technically very elaborate and advanced master. He moved on to work for Jörg Müller in Sylt and, most importantly, as a sous-chef of Harald Wohlfahrt at the Schwarzwaldstube to name just the most important stints he served. So, utmost precision and product excellence can be expected…

The Restaurant

Buddenbrooks is located in the Lübeck room of the former Kurhaus which is now part of the AROSA complex: huge and impressive at first sight but still comfortable and not intimidating, for me a place to feel at home immediately. But, I have to admit I am big fan of Jugendstil interior with high ceilings, stucco and the like…

Continue reading

Bistronomics in Germany: Weinsinn (Frankfurt)

Bistronomics, those nice little bistro-style outlets where high-end cuisine is served is not a totally new phenomenon – in 2008 when in Barcelona I had a couple of splendid meals at places like Gresca and Embat. Around the same time, in France new culinary hotspots emerged, yet with a distinct edge against any dogmatism so present in the usual guides, lobbying a “no rules” approach to dining and emphasizing both the emotional and culinary aspects of dining out. Early in 1999 the ‘fooding’ term had been coined by the food journalist Alexandre Cammas, a new art word stemming from ‘food’ and ‘feeling’ which then, in 2000, led to the founding of the ‘le fooding’ restaurant guide together with Emmanuel Rubin. In a nutshell, it’s all about democratizing fine dining.

Meanwhile, in Paris: an armada of restaurants were ready to challenge conventional French snobbery and luxury dining, among them places like Frenchie, Saturne, Le Chateaubriand, Rino, Yam’Tcha*, La Bigarrade** or Passage 53**, to name but a few. Even though they are not hunting the stars, some of them receive them, with the second star for Passage 53 being recently awarded in this year’s Guide Rouge. And most importantly, this does not lead to changes in the concept or catapulting prices: at La Bigarrade, the 12-course tasting is still at reasonable 65€/85€ (lunch/dinner), at Le Chateubriand the five-course mystery menu is still at 45€, despite being number 9! (and thus the best restaurant in France) on the polarizing San Pellegrino list. To take a long story short, given the only minor developments at the top Michelin places in France in recent years, the music plays at these vibrant, cool, young and fun neo-bistros where ‘fine dining’ is so successfully re-defined as those places are hard to get a table at. And, the idea spreads to Denmark (Relœ) and Belgium (Neptune, Veranda)…

And Germany? There seems to be some hope for food enthusiasts looking for a excellent fare at reasonable prices as two Amador disciples have begun to cook in a neo-bistro manner, André Rickert at Weinsinn in Frankfurt and Christoph Kubenz at Schaumahl in Offenburg (where no Frankfurter would normally set a step, but it’s worth it). But, and that is gratifying, they are not pure copyists of the French, but very distinct and unique protagonists of a maybe developing German bistronomic scene… Let’s see how Rickert is doing lately at Weinsinn…

Continue reading

Young German Chefs (II): Steffen Mezger

Since September 2009 Munich has a new culinary hotspot: Innegrit Volkhardt, owner of the prestigious Hotel Bayerischer Hof immensely invested in the redesign of the former Garden restaurant and established a new Fine Dining restaurant called Atelier” and appointed Steffen Mezger, previously the chef the cuisine at the Garden restaurant, to lead both restaurants. Very quickly, this new venue won its first accolades with the first star in November 2010 and 17 points in the Gault Millau. Moreover, many foodie friends and some Facebook pictures told me that the cuisine is modern and interesting – so a visit was obviously mandatory☺

Continue reading

Young German Chefs (I): Kevin Fehling

What’s the next generation of German chefs doing? To be sure, the development on the top, in the three star segment, has been breath-taking in the last couple of years – chefs like Juan Amador, Christian Bau, Thomas Bühner, Klaus Erfort, Nils Henkel and Joachim Wissler have improved significantly and developed very distinctive own handwritings, all at a consistently high level. This poses the question whether they are the only culinary pacemakers in Germany? In other countries, there are many young chefs that left their mark in the culinary world by creating a unique approach or selling a comprehensive and coherent dining experience. Among others, René Redzepi (obviously needs to be mentioned here but he is already somehow established), Kobe Desmaraults of In de Wulf, the whole bistronomia movement or more recently the ‘le fooding’ group in France have demonstrated that you don’t need three or even any Michelin stars to become a destination dining restaurant.

And how’s the situation like in Germany? Between 25-35 there are a couple of upcoming and very promising chefs – but, most of them are known only in Germany and have not yet achieved bigger awareness. Let us start a new series on the most promising young chefs and apply the case study method to investigate.

Continue reading

Hof van Cleve 2010

In culinary terms, speaking of Flanders clearly means much more than just the Belgium region. In the former County of Flanders that encompasses parts of present-day France, Belgium and the Netherlands many interesting “modern” restaurants have mushroomed over the last couple of years that resulted in the formation of the Flemish Primitives named after Northern renaissance painters inspired by various arts. There are many reasons for this development – on the one hand the Flemish tend to be curious and open towards new ideas and dining has always been an important part of their culture. On the other hand, such an evolution needs some spearheads that pave the way for a next generation of chefs.

Continue reading

Oud Sluis 2010

In August 2009 after a splendid diner at Oud Sluis I asked Sergio Herman what he still strives to achieve after being awarded three stars (since 2005) and 19.5 points in the Gault Millau. He paused and stated that first of all he wants to give the best every day (and for his highly artificial cuisine that’s a lot of work given the incredible booking situation and opening times serving lunch and diner during the week). And, then he added that he is eager to continuously reinvent himself. At the Flemish Primitives 2010, he stated more precisely that he wants to spread the “Sergio feeling” creating an overall dining experience working together with various artists (e.g. tattoos, porcelain, photo) to express his personal style.

Sergio Herman

In the summer break of 2009 this development had just begun as he had completely renovated the interior of the restaurant into a very modern black and white “salle de noir”, combining the previously separated rooms and painting even the homey wooden ceiling white. When we dined there, the white brigade still needed time to feel comfortable and the whole setting seemed to lack the warmth and authenticity of previous years.

Already in this very 2009 diner, the style of the cuisine had slightly changed as the style-defining presence of international, especially Asian flavors was less apparent and some dishes showed more looks than substance.

The iFoie (top left) is a brilliant idea but it’s just apple and foie mousse with a sherry jelly which tasted good but did not create the most interesting interplay of flavors and textures that is one of the cornerstones of Sergio’s cuisine (thank god I added the brilliant textures of foie gras as a second foie serving (top right)). Similarily disappointing in this respect were both the tattoo dessert (bottom right – Sergio had created two tattoos with the legendary tattoo artist Henk Schiffmacher, one for the lady, one for the gentleman) and the LOVE dessert inspired by Robert Indiana. To be sure, most of the other courses were outstanding to divine, but the overall level of the meal was below my previous Oud Sluis experiences which showed more overall consistency.

Then, end of 2009, the big bang happened: Gault Millau awarded 20 points to Oud Sluis, an honor previously only given to Marc Veyrat who has closed his three star venue due to health problems. So, there is one answer to my question – at least now, there are no further promotions possible☺

I expected the booking situation to worsen (and it did) but as I was invited to a wedding of dear Facebook friends (a blind “date” in 2009) I could book a weekday lunch table for September in May…

We opted for the six course (three desserts are counted as one course) Père et fils menu and asked for an additional course – in the end, they charged €185 for the enlarged menu. This is exactly the price for the now offered seven course menu.

2007 Leányka

This parade did already show the direction of Sergio’s further development: an utmost precision even in the tiniest detail let the amuse (and later the petit fours as well) look like art in itself, like little sculptures. Although this sculptural touch had been present in Sergio’s dishes before, it was definitely some notches up for the amuse/petit fours. And, they did taste: mussels / almonds / oyster chips were perfectly fresh and crisp and the macaron with salmon and yoghurt was intense, yet showing a bit too much meringue (but half the macaron would do for many many other macarons as it can become far too dominating).

Wonderful structures of carrot with amazingly tender pork belly, crab and miso followed by eel with beet root, sour cream and hamachi with sprouts, horseradish and soy formed the first phalanx of incredible amuse which certainly showed that there is no better way to start a meal – well, only they could have been served a bit more chilled (but this is a surely a tribute to the full restaurant and the immense workload necessary to prepare them).

The wine pairing with a 2007 Leányka from Hungary (christ, I simply cannot read the producer’s name on the bottle and forgot to take notes) was very successfull – the grape Leányka means ‘maid’ in Hungarian which is programmatic for this floral and rosy wine with enoght structure to accompany the various ‘nibbles’ and the first course

The second part of the amuse was also impressive: a very genuine salad / tomato cracker and goat cheese ice cream demonstrated how refined even the simpliest ingredients can taste if treated with utmost care and respect. Last but not least, a delicate and very Sergio-like interpretation of thinly sliced Wagyu with spring onions, chicken skin cracker, avocado crème and Tomkagai jelly and a new version of the signature variation of local mussels: razor clams, small crabs, mussels with kaffir lime and dried soy jus. Outstanding and a big applause for this craftsmanship and parade of ideas.

The first course took us back on the ground and we wondered whether this Stockman bowl of Greenland prawns was really served at Oud Sluis. Already from the appearance one can tell that this creation is less dense and complex than “usual”. Of course, the prawns were of outstanding quality and nicely marinated in soy and some lime vinegar, the accord with the fresh and intense cucumber and the slight temperature contrast with the granite of bergamot worked perfectly. Yet, I missed the textural accentuation that normally emphasizes exactly the right elements of the plate. Moreover, the many prawns seemed a bit repetitive although they were each individually aromatized by different wild herbs but this was more like Aduriz and less like Herman, somehow too subtle for him. For every other chef this would be excellent but Sergio can clearly do better.

From a menu dramaturgy point, clearly more refreshing and a better start than before – maybe that’s his rationale behind this dish… Unfortunately Sergio had left to look after his kids after we finished, so I couldn’t ask him

2008 Eisachtaler Riesling Kaiton, Kuenhof, Alto Aldige

Next up was our inserted second preparation of langoustine: a carpaccio of langoustine filled with intense north sea crab meat surrounded by an archetypical langoustine jelly and a very intense lime/verbena-gel. Whereas the prawns had shown at least some texture, this was texturally too one-dimensional. And it was a bit rich – something I never experience before at Oud Sluis. But, the taste was incredible, the carpaccio showed an amazing product character and the interplay of the langoustine, more rustic crab and the jelly and the herbal gel in combination with the shiso cress was a masterpiece. Sometimes, textures don’t seem necessary. Excellent.

2009 acústic blanc, acústic celler, Monsant/Spain

Ahh, finally, a typical Sergio dish: a benchmark species of roasted langoustine served with different tomatoes and courgette emulsion, spring onions and fresh almonds accompanied by a wonderful almond and tomato vinaigrette. As “simple” as it seems, this is Sergio at its best: perfect dimensioning with the almonds providing the essential unexpected kick, light, fresh (abandoning with heavy sauces but using light transparent vinaigrettes), product-focused and a nice textural overlay using the natural and pure courgettes, almonds and the thin toast. Pure pleasure – bravo!

2005 Crémant d’Alsace, Audrey et Christian Binner, Alsace

The next course was again most unusual as I never had a warm gooseliver dish at Oud Sluis before. A first dish to criticize also from a non-Sergio perspective: the hazelnut and goose liver emulsions made the dish overly creamy, the peach was a bit isolated and could not show its full potential such that the whole dish was not in equilibrium of sweet, sour, rich and earthy flavors. And, it’s hard to stand up against the quality of Anne-Sophie Pic’s roasted foie gras – nowhere in the world (except maybe for Troisgros) can this foie quality be found. So why serve this slightly inferior product? Overall, a very good dish and maybe one of the only dishes at Oud Sluis not at three star level.

My dining companion got the eel with quinoa, a far more satisfactory endeavor as it again was pure Sergio and nice interpretation of the sweet-sour duality. Especially the marinated eel really added nice counterpart to the almost pure other elements as it grounded the dish. A textural balance act, perfectly constructed. Outstanding.

2008 Chardonnay Cuvée du Pape, Chateau Ksara, Bekaa Valley/Libanon

A second divine dish: perfect loup (of the necessary thickness!) combined with surprising smoked lobster as indirect aromatization, some beet root and radish variations. Interestingly, one of the rare occasions where Sergio used a kind of beurre blanc that carried slightly smoky notes to add acidity, and balancing out the dish. Nothing else needed, nothing redundant… Amazing pairing with the Libanese Chardonnay!

2006 Coteaux du Languedoc “Clos Maginiani, Domaine Zumbaum Tomasi, Languedoc

Pigeon is, among lamb, one of favorite protagonists for mains at Oud Sluis. Irrespective of the premier pigeon quality, the interesting sea kale salad and the galangal, this dish seemed a bit bland as there was too less on this Stockman plate to counterbalance the sheer amount of the pigeon. Tasty, yes, nice textures, yes, nice interplay of acidity, spiciness and fruitiness, yes – but it could not quite live up to the divine pigeon dish with solid/liquid foie spheres and the sushi of cabbage served in 2008. Nevertheless excellent…

The first part of the desserts: contrary to last year’s only visually appealing dishes, this “mouth” delivered and showed the full spectrum of OS’s pastry mastery, artistically playing with the cherries theme with some mascarpone mousse and yoghut ice cream underneath. Not like an improvisation but like a cleverly arranged variation, never boring, texturally diverse and just to the point. Outstanding.

”Bugs buggy” was along the same lines – a variation of carrots in a dessert, particularly the cakes were astonishingly good. Visually and taste-wise stunning. Maybe a bit repetitive…

The third divine dish of this lunch: “berries in a leading role” showed how modern pastry can create new worlds to be discovered. A benchmark vanilla flan, different berries, various textural elements served with an incredibly sweet broth of berries and lime. Chapeau!

As I had not eaten the tattoo coins created by Sergio and the industrial designers of studio Job, he inserted them after the dessert parade. A bit reminiscent of last year’s visual phase, it is just chocolate, nothing else. Admittedly presented in an appealing way but not a proper dessert course as which it had been used end of last year. Simply too “boring” compared to the other desserts.

The parade of petit fours repeated the artistry of the amuse – a delicate combination of verbena and aloe vera, passion fruit and white chocolate followed by a masterly miniature of a modern tiramisu with grenadine, milk crunch with yuzu and a fruit soup with mint.

The Verdict

Overall, this lunch was much better than the 2009 experience, but not quite at the level of 2007 and 2008. The complexity of Sergio’s style is still very present and in way the he has taken the next step towards integrating visual dishes and filling them with more “content” and delicacy, especially the pastry is back on the block and has left its merely visual phase of 2009. Maybe the integration of both approaches will yield the “Sergio feeling” in the end.

Interestingly, in my previous reviews I praised that Sergio exposes the diner to a new world of textural suspense and of unknown flavors/ flavor combinations. In this very respect, this lunch did not create that much sensation as in 2007/8. There are two reasons: on the one hand I have gained more exposure to fine dining and thus experience such that it is harder to really wow me. On the other hand, the competition did not sleep in the meantime – others have somehow tried to replicate Sergio’s structuralism (but most failed) or enlarged their spectrum of flavors and products. For example, whereas the gap between Sergio and the top German chefs was quite substantial in 2008 it subsequently narrowed down and chefs like Wissler, Bau, Elverfeld and Amador are at a similar level, yet with a distinct and different style. (On a side note, the whole modern Benelux “school” seems heavily influenced by Sergio’s (and also Jonnie Boer’s) work and thus seems repetitive from time to time. Only Peter Goossens has found his unique way in integrating both modern and traditional aspects and thus stands out (more to come soon on my Hof van Cleve visit)).

So, keeping that in mind it is hard to judge Sergio by comparing him to his previous work – in a way, this makes him his own benchmark but makes further development difficult – at that level, that is. Subjectively, the cuisine is more “back on track” after the “disappointing” 2009 experience and maybe the trajectory will lead Sergio towards a cuisine with is both visually stunning and pure delicacy keeping his key strengths. So, to be sure, this is still a benchmark experience and every foodie should have eaten here, enjoying the unique atmosphere and impeccable service (interior, brigade and cuisine seem more balanced out now)! I, for myself, can’t wait to see where the journey goes.(1)

________________________________

(1) I only hope that Sergio can deliberately diversify to obtain other funding sources in order to be able to cut down opening times and stress for his brigade… For some very good impressions see the following vidao (still the old interior) above

Restaurant Oud Sluis
Beestenmarkt 2
4524 EA Sluis
Tel:  +31 (0) 117-461269
Web: http://www.oudsluis.nl
Mail: contact@oudsluis.nl
Opening Times:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Lunch from


12.0012.00
12.00

12.00
Dinner from


19:0019:00
19:00
19:00
19:00