The year in Rewind: My personal highlights of 2012

Happy new Year to all of you! 2012 was a year filled with many wines, not too many tastings and blind tastings, but certainly enough Epicurian moments to fill a few pages. I certainly have not reported everything, as workload was higher than in previous years, but there are some great moments that are worth being mentioned anew. Read the rest of this entry »

Restaurant Villa Merton* in Frankfurt – Frankfurt’s natural Cuisine

Finally I got to visit one of Frankfurt’s most acclaimed fine dining locations, Restaurant Villa Merton*, where Chef Matthias Schmidt is applying a cuisine which could be qualified as regional, experimental and natural. Without doubt, there are some striking similarities to restaurant Noma chef René Redzepi’s philosophy, as Schmitt as well has a focus on regional specialties, gathering herbs and fruit and sourcing meat and fish in the very region of Frankfurt.

After I had a provisional introduction to Matthias Schmidt’s cuisine at a pop-up restaurant last year, a friend’s visit was the right occasion to discover his philosphy “full throttle”. We opted for the seven course menu named “Stoff”, here’s the story of our dinner. Read the rest of this entry »

Matthias Schmidt at Prêt à Dîner Pop-up restaurant in Frankfurt

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The Kofler catering company already had quite some success running pop-up restaurants, mostly in the hip German capital, Berlin. Now they moved on to other cities and recently opened Pret-à Dîner in the just completed but not yet occupied Frankfurt skyscraper Nextower. The restaurant and its “Tree house” bar operate there for 6 weeks, from Sept. 8th Oct. 15th, hosting several Michelin-starred and newcomer chefs during this time. Read the rest of this entry »

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