Contrary to popular belief it is entirely possible to eat well in the north
of Germany, and Bremen in particular! In addition to its beer, coffee and
chocolate, Bremen offers a cuisine that is both appetising and
sophisticated, which will appeal to partisans of local fare and disciples of
creative cuisine alike.
Coffee and cakes
 Half of the coffee consumed in Germany has transited via Bremen since the
17th century. Before Hamburg, Bonn and Berlin, it was in Bremen that the
country's first establishment serving cups of coffee was founded. It was
also there that the famous HAG decaffeinated coffee was invented in 1906.
Today, “Café” generally designates a cake shop where you can sit and eat in,
such as the famous Knigge cake shop.
The more authentic and traditional Stecker cake shop dates back to 1742
and boasts an impressive collection of 19th century nutcrackers. The Stecker
family is a real dynasty of pastry cooks. People come here to sample the
delicious “Dresden Stolle”, a sort of fruit cake made with butter, almonds,
raisins, sugar, and orange. Its local counterpart is none other than the
“Bremen Klaben”, which contains more raisins. The other speciality of Bremen
is the “tree cake”, a cake in the shape of a trunk with countless inner
layers that look like the growth rings of a tree. Be sure to try the fresh
apple strudels with pastry as fine as in Vienna!
Chocolate
In Bremen, the other institution after coffee is chocolate; the Hachez
company, founded in 1890, is the second largest chocolate manufacturer in
Germany after Lindt.
Hachez imports its noble beans from Ecuador, Venezuela and Mexico, and
prepares the cocoa using traditional methods: it takes 100 hours of work
from grain to bar! The cocoa is notably ground and mixed for 72 hours to
obtain a very fine powder with little bitterness. Hachez' 88%-cocoa
chocolate is smooth and fine. Delicious milk chocolate and drinking
chocolate to drink in or take away.
A choice of wines, sausages and caviar beneath the flagstones of the town
hall
Although Bremen is renowned for its very pure beer (the famous Beck's),
wine connoisseurs will also be interested in exploring the immense cellar
located beneath the medieval vaults of the Rathaus, opposite the market
place. This cellar contains 600,000 German wines (the oldest of them dating
back to 1653), kept in a candlelit room. A shop outside, next to the
Rathaus, sells a selection of vintage wines dating back to 1727. Here you
will find the sublime ice wines (Eiswein) from the Sarre and Moselle,
renowned for their aromas of dried fruit, rose and spices.
Also located in the town hall basement, the Ratskeller is a large
picturesque brasserie with its old ornate casks, waitresses dressed medieval
style, and little wooden booths where you can have a romantic dinner behind
curtains. (Menu from €18*)
At the other end of the dining room, the gourmet restaurant L'Orchidée
marks a change of standard! The atmosphere here is rather chic and the
prices are high, but this is the city's leading restaurant. The
French-inspired cuisine combines international flavours, for example sea
bass with Iberian ham, carrot soup with ginger or marinated tuna with
Charentais melon. (Sampler menu at €89).
Where to go for lunch and dinner
Set in a 16th century house in the heart of the oldest and most charming
district in Bremen, the Schnoor, Schröters is a fashionable restaurant which
is known above all for its trendy Italian-inspired cuisine.
Preferring to try local recipes, we ordered a venison stew with
mushrooms, red cabbage and potatoes, dressed with a ginger and elder sauce.
The calf's head on parsley mousse with mushrooms was also finely crafted.
You can also let yourself be tempted by 100% traditional Bremen dishes, such
as green cabbage and sausage stuffed with oats, poussin stew (Kükenragout),
Vegesack herring and cabbage with black pudding. (Menu at €30)
Above the Weser and not far from the beautiful windmill overlooking the
river, Grashoff is one of Bremen's gourmet institutions. This delicatessen,
created in 1872, is renowned throughout Germany for the quality of its
products: its jams, homemade chocolates, ready-cooked meals, balsamic
vinegars, delicious rye bread (which keeps for a week!), baguettes, cooked
pork meats, French cheeses, and old cognacs.
But Grashoff is also a bistro where people like to come and eat during
the day, until 6.30pm. In addition to its beautiful red leather seats and
old photos, connoisseurs will discover an impressive wine list dedicated to
the great wines of Bordeaux, with the oldest vintages dating back to 1961 (a
legendary year if ever there was one). At the bar we sampled a pleasant Kiel
salmon trout caviar, as well as a Canadian lobster with saffron. (Menu at
€35)
The Park Hotel restaurant is an address that we recommend as much for its
magnificent setting (large windows giving onto an English-style park) as for
its cuisine, which is both classic and creative. Frenchman Laurent Vialle,
45, arrived here barely six months ago, after starting out at the Plaza
Athénée in Paris and then travelling through Europe and Morocco for ten
years. From this voyage of discovery, he has been able to make good use of
the various cooking methods of Scotland, Portugal, Poland and Germany.
Although his cuisine is of French inspiration, with for example sole
meunière, chateaubriand and canard à la presse (a duck speciality of the
Tour d'Argent restaurant in Paris), he nevertheless endeavours to use the
most outstanding local produce such as venison, pikeperch, smoked fish,
liver sausage and cabbage. His cappuccino-style onion soup with cream of
potato is delicious. The sommelier will introduce you to some fine German
Rieslings, such as those of Fritz Haag and Reinhardt Löwestein. (Sampler
menu at €60, lunch €40).
* One euro is worth approximately 0.67 GBP.
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