Paris, Berlin, Munich
Posted: 7th September 2022
It has been a long time since I travelled so much in one month, but these journeys were a mixture of duty, work and holiday and in no way was I expecting to eat or drink anything exceptional. I went to Paris in a heatwave to see my ninety-five year old mother. Being August half the shops were shut and most Parisians away by the sea. The nearest to a gastronomic experience I had was the cheap menu at the Terminus Nord: egg mayonnaise with celeriac, a chicken breast with a buttery potato purée and a pichet of Sylvaner. It was still a pleasure to be in one of Paris’s great brasseries again, to see the waiters pirouetting in their black and white uniforms, or almost buckling under the weight of their great plateaux de fruits de mer; but lobster and champagne would have been wholly inappropriate for me.
There were naturally little compensations like a proper café crème and a croissant for breakfast or the sight of immaculate cakes in the windows of a few open pâtissiers, the market in the boulevard Edgar Quinet reeking of ripe melons or the now gentrified shops in the rue des Martyres. I shall be back in happier times.
A family holiday came next. We went first to one of my favourite places in Central Europe: Bamberg, until 1803 an ecclesiastical city where the great writer E T A Hoffmann eked out a fruitful period of his life after he was removed from the Prussian bench following the humiliating defeats of Auerstedt and Jena. Bamberg is actually a city in three volumes, with its Gartenstadt, Inselstadt and Bergstadt: the one the former domain of market gardeners, the baroque island city between the arms of the Regnitz, and the seven hills of the mediaeval Bergstadt – the Franconian Rome.
As far as drinking is concerned, Bamberg is chiefly known for beer, but it lies on the eastern edge of wine-Franconia and there is even a small vineyard on the monastic Michaelsberg. Beer, however, is what you see, announced by the huge maltings that greet you as your train docks in the station. Beer is represented by Schenkerla, Spezial, Fässla, Greiffenklau, Mahrs and Klosterbräu, which make their traditional Helles and Dünkel as well as the rather more recent Weizen (wheat) as well as the local speciality of smoked or Rauchbier. These you will encounter in the various wood-panelled brewery taps which are still the best places to eat in Bamberg, but after a few days you get a little tired of the solid local cooking: Schäuferla (slow cooked pork shoulder) or Sauerbraten (roast pork) with sauerkraut and dumplings. I did have some rather good smoked liver sausages but by the time we left we were ready for something different, and even stopped for a pizza (not something I do often).
On a positive note, a finally got to the magnificent Schloss Weissentein in Pommersfelden and saw the sala terrena, which gave me many new ideas for my grotto. We will be eating a lot more shellfish this winter.
The next stop was Berlin, where we stayed and largely dined with friends. We were based in the Bayerisches Viertel in Schöneberg opposite a baker that had opened its doors in 1948, the year when the Deutsche Mark was launched and Germans emerged from the ruins to open shops. It is quite an achievement to remain in the same premises for seventy-five years. Once again my family was delighted with its range of Streusel, Bienenstich and cheese cakes, marzipan and nut slices, plum tarts and fruit turnovers, which were generally priced between 1.70 and 1.90 Euros: a snip of what you’d pay here.
Berlin is not exactly cheap, but it is a hell of a lot cheaper than London. I was struck by the wine prices in a smart local deli: a decent Minervois at eight Euros, and really good Perrin Rhone village wine for thirteen. Bear in mind that this was not a supermarket and it wasn’t buying at discounted prices and that the Euro was worth all of 85p. The city does offer German food, but every other speciality is on offer too. It was sad to record the demise of one of my favourite ‘Prussian’ restaurants: Zum Nussbaum on the Bundesplatz, but there is still Diener in Charlottenburg if you want Königsberger Klopse. The wine in bars and restaurants is not always German either and the local beer has never been special, even if there are some good brewpubs.
From Berlin it was back to Munich and southern Bavaria and a work trip. Our tour covered much the same ground as the last one, which meant we were often in the same restaurants and pubs. The excellent Schillerbräu in Munich hits you with a gigantic platter of ‘Bavarian tapas’, for example, so big that there must be a lot of waste. Other than that, standard Bavarian food looks a lot like what you find on the other side of the Austrian Border, only without the panache. Dumplings are pretty universal, either made of bread or a mixture of grated raw potatoes and mash, with buttery breadcrumbs on top, but I didn’t see any meaty Fleisch or Speckknödel. There were lots of wild mushrooms about after the rain, big heaps of chanterelles and ceps, but I only got to eat some in Oberammergau. The only really perceptible difference between Austrian and Bavarian meals is the presence of many appetising variations on the theme of Bavarian creams and some standard beer hall snacks such as Obatzda: mashed up soft cheese with onions and beer.
For me there was the opportunity to sink a Weizen in the excellent Maxbräu brewpub in Oberammergau, but I was nearly defeated by two enormous slabs of Leberkäs (meatloaf); and we were treated well at our hotel in Füssen, but when I walk down the road into the lovely, bustling mediaeval town I do ask myself if there is not a more atmospheric place to eat within the town walls? After all, visually Bavaria has so much to offer.
