One Michelin Star in Fulda. Germany.
Pretty much in the middle of Germany – in the Bundesland of Hessen, about 50 miles to the East of Frankfurt – lies the town of Fulda. It has a lovely old town centre with its typical architecture for the area (“Fachwerkbauten”). In its very centre there is a One Michelin Star restaurant called “Christian&Friends – tastekitchen“.
The Chef – Christian Steska – is actually a trained baker. Hence the 9 course menu kicks-off with a delicious variety of freshly baked breds. These are accompoanied by pumpkin butter, one of the best butter I have ever had.
The first Amuse Gueule is a medium cooked quail`s egg inside a crispy wrap. All taken in one bite, the egg smoothly melts into your mouth.
Caviar on Beurre Blanc is the first part of the “Caviar²” starter. Since Russia as a source for caviar drops out, the eggs come from a locally bred sturgeon.
Part II of the caviar starter: here with a sous-vide cooked fillet of sturgeon and beluga lentils.
This is alledgedly Mr Steska`s signature dish: catfish gratinated with black pudding, green-sauce ice cream and potato foam. A controversial combo, but I am open to it. Not my highlight though.
One of my favorites of the menu: tuna belly with wasabi, crystallized lemon drops and seaweed. I know this most exquisite part of tuna from advanced Japanese cuisine (fatty tuna bell: “toro”).
This was the main course highlight for me: Sot-l`y-laisse (in French: a fool, who leaves that over) on Jerusalem artichoke, truffle and cabbage. The former is – as I have learnt – a special part from the back part of a chicken back. Very juicy and tender. Accompanied by a most delicious thickly reduced chicken sauce.
As a second main course Chef Christian chose a wonderful pink lamb back, alongside red beetroot, cranberries, and pistacchio. Again, the intense flavours of the reduced lamb jus strike me most from that wonderful dish.
I am repeatedly surprised how compact professional kitchens are. But this one beats them all: the heart of the kitchen is probably smaller than mine at home, barely 25 square metres in size. So it`s all about organisation and preparation.
Desserts start with a chocolate praline from peca nuts, with an olive core (hardly recognisable) and liquorice. Taken as a whole into the mouth made me feel the full range of tastes.
This one was my bespoke dessert: a subtle chocolate ice-cream on a bed of passion fruit jelly and mole. I could die for the combo of chocolate ice-cream with fruits.
Christian is a very sympathetic, fairly young chef. All-in-all a nice, memorable culinary experience in small town Germany. And as should be with food at that level, I had my wow effects during the evening.