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…

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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.

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