Late spring and early summer, however, bring a change of pace. It’s Spargelzeit—white asparagus season.
Thus, Germans can plate up pale giants with a satisfying density that can easily stand in for meat. Spargel with boiled potatoes and hollandaise in season—or Käsespätzle, the Teutonic macaroni and cheese, year-round—are the only vegetarian dishes you can reliably expect to find on traditional menus.
Most decent restaurants will have a dedicated spargel menu during Spargelzeit, which runs from mid-April to the end of June. If they don’t, walk away. That’s a clear sign they aren’t sourcing locally or changing their menu with the seasons. (We cruised down the Rhine in the same season in 2022 and never saw a stalk on board—a telling sign of how industrialised and inauthentic cruise food can be.)
Unlike Italy, where food can change radically over the next mountain range, traditional German menus don’t vary much from place to place. Aside from a passion for currywurst (hot dog-like sausages dredged in curry-flavoured ketchup) in Berlin, a preference for heavily spiced Sauerbraten (roast beef in a vinegar-based sauce), the more frequent appearance of goulash, and a few distinctive local beers, we found little on this trip to differentiate Saxon cuisine from what we’ve eaten in Bavaria. If a distinctive Saxon cuisine exists, we needed more help to find it. That certainly didn’t diminish our enjoyment.
The king of these stereotypical dishes is schnitzel. Veal—a by-product of Germany’s thriving dairy industry—is pounded thin, breaded, and pan-fried. There’s a wide variety. At cheaper places you might suspect the kitchen started with frozen, pre-breaded cutlets. But at the high end, you’ll find magically light offerings where the breading bubbles away from the meat, which is perfectly cooked to preserve its flavour without overdoing it. I suspect obscene amounts of butter are involved.
Pork in all its forms is celebrated across Germany. A roast knuckle with perfect crackling or slices served with sauce are the most typical. Dumplings are as common as potatoes. On this trip, I encountered pretzel dumplings for the first time—an exciting discovery. Their flavour profile is subtly different; if you like big, soft pretzels, this is a taste sensation. Flammkuchen—Germany’s answer to pizza—is done on a wafer-thin crispy crust with crème fraîche and is an excellent lunch option. And of course, sausages are ubiquitous.
In Saxony, wine is surprisingly prominent. There’s a thriving local trade along the Elbe around Dresden. Whites are crisp, bright, and easy to drink. While Müller-Thurgau and Riesling dominate, some of our favourite bottles were Bacchus—a grape widely grown in England. When drinking red, we enjoyed several Spätburgunder (Germany’s name for Pinot Noir): very light, low in tannins, with gentle berry notes. We sampled a range from a €3.50 grocery store Spätburgunder to a €46 celebratory Bacchus at Lutter & Wegner. Honestly, there wasn’t much differentiation by price. My only shopping regret is not bringing home a few cases of that Lidl red from Dresden.
On the beer front, two local varieties are worth trying. Leipzig does a distinctive brew called Gose, made with salt and coriander. We were glad to try it once, but returned to our favourites. More my style is Kölsch, the super-light lager brewed around Cologne. It’s served in small glasses, swapped out every time you finish, ensuring it’s always cold.
Restaurants Worth Seeking Out
Listed in order of preference, with the most memorable meal on top.
Johanna Nussbaumer’s restaurant is a much-lauded local favourite in one of Munich’s poshest neighbourhoods. There are just 13 tables across two elegant rooms that feel more like an upscale home than a restaurant. Fitting, since this is the Austrian chef’s personal domain. She started cooking here in 2008 and a few years ago assembled a kitchen crew trusted enough to allow her to move front of house. Now she greets every guest and will stop by for a chat if you’re up for it. This was my perfect holiday meal. A salad of lightly poached asparagus and cured salmon is about to be revived at our place for a dinner party. Then came the perfect schnitzel—so delicate and flavourful I have no hope of recreating it. The apricot dumpling dessert, which I’d first encountered at Göttweig Abbey, finally lived up to its potential: gooey, substantial-yet-light, tart and sweet. I’d make the journey just for that. Johanna, sitting with us at the end of the evening, explained that the secret is home-made jam at the centre rather than a whole apricot and had the staff crack a jar for us to try it in its raw state. What an evening.
I’d hoped to introduce Piers to this cornerstone of Berlin’s traditional food scene, but we were too busy there. Imagine my delight to discover a branch in Leipzig, in the shadow of St. Thomas Church, where Bach ran the music. It’s right next to the Bach museum—which we intended to visit, but a long lunch triumphed. An asparagus salad creatively mixed with strawberries, thyme and a well-balanced dressing overcame my aversion to fruit in savoury dishes. And here I discovered goulash served with dumplings—an innovation over rice or potatoes that deserves to spread.
This oddly named spot—"the tavern of the chicken thief"—benefits from being our first alfresco meal of the year, in a sunny square on just our second day. Even so, the spargel soup spiked with crisp bacon was one of the best asparagus dishes of the holiday, and Piers’ Flammkuchen was nearly perfect. Aachen is within Cologne’s Kölsch zone, and lunch here rivalled Charlemagne’s cathedral as the highlight of the day. The square, just down from the town’s picturesque Rathaus, is home to the Couven Museum. And the chicken thief? He’s an amusing statue caught red-handed: he meant to steal a hen but grabbed the cockerel, now crowing his impending doom.
The big Munich beer brands now run halls all over Germany. This Paulaner branch stood out for its location—right across from the Residenz Museum (collapse here when you can’t walk another step)—and its homey, historic interior. Classic beer halls are close cousins to Britain’s best pubs: dark woods, brass, smoked glass, historic bric-a-brac. This one served up perfect pork knuckle with crackling that shattered like glass. And, of course, my husband’s favourite beer.
In a valiant effort to be healthy after 14 days in Carb Central, I ordered a salad. This being Germany, it was Wurstsalat—a bit of lettuce buried under strips of what Americans would call Bologna. With a soft pretzel. Not healthy, but it tasted like a hundred childhood lunches, so full marks for nostalgia. The real draw here is the word Brauerei. This microbrewery has taken over Germany’s oldest train station. A great place to try Gose. It’s not unpleasant, but one was enough for us.
It’s no surprise that the lowest-ranked restaurant is also the most touristy. A Bencard’s Bites guideline: the higher the tourist profile, the lower the authenticity. That said, it was fun and the food was good, even if it felt mass-produced. The setting—a sprawling cellar around the base of a medieval armoury tower—is dramatic. We came here after Easter mass and it felt celebratory. Piers loved the giant glasses of beer. I tried the Saxon-style Sauerbraten and found it unpleasantly spiced, full of Christmas notes like cinnamon and nutmeg. Very medieval. I didn’t try another to confirm the regional flavour. After that, I stuck with pork and veal.
The penalty for all this comfort food when I returned to my first post-holiday Weight Watcher’s meeting? Five pounds. Looking back over this copy, I’m probably lucky it wasn’t more. Germany is a treat, but two and a half weeks there makes me happy to return to a veg-heavy diet.
No comments:
Post a Comment