Landhaus Scherrer

This restaurant, originally a tavern opened in 1840, was reopened as a fine dining restaurant in 1976 by Armin and Emmi Scherrer in 1976. The building has a country house feel with wood panelling and antique paintings. Since 1980 its head chef has been Heinz Otto Wehmannl it has held a Michelin star for decades. The cuisine is traditional north German, and it has a reputation for its schnitzel and its roast duck, supplied by Hamburg food distributor Vierlande, and which is carved tableside. The dining room can seat up to 150 guests and there is outside seating in good weather. Fifteen chefs work in the kitchen. 

Its huge wine cellar has 10,000 bottles but there was no wine list available to browse today on a tablet for some technical reason. I just had water to drink. There was a tasting menu of five courses at €159 or six courses at €161. I went a la carte. The large dining room had well-spaced tables, comfortable chairs, linen tablecloths and display plates with mildly erotic paintings on them.

A canapé was tartar of salmon, fennel., salmon roe, shredded kohlrabi and creme fraiche. This was simple but very pleasant (13/20). There were also some basic slices of bread with olive oil and a little tomato paste. My starter of seafood cocktail had North Sea shrimps, quail egg and cocktail sauce on a bed of lettuce and radish. This came with fried bread and rosti potatoes. This was all very enjoyable, the cocktail sauce nicely made, the rosti having good texture (14/20).

Wiener schnitzel is one of the specialities here so I opted for that. This came with fried potatoes and a cucumber salad. The head chef Mr Wehmann always delivers the main course to his guests in the dining room, which I thought was a nice touch. The schnitzel had a suitably crisp golden breadcrumb coating and the fried potatoes avoided greasiness, the cucumber salad offering some welcome balance (14/20). 

 Apple strudel was made from scratch in the kitchen. This came with cranberry sorbet and vanilla cream. The strudel was excellent, with good pastry and a nicely judged apple filling, and the dish was nicely presented (14/20). Service was friendly and the bill came to €101 (£88) with just water to drink. Of course, this would be more if you had the tasting menu and ordered wine. A more typical cost per person if you shared a modest bottle of wine and had coffee might be around £115. Landhaus Scherrer is a good place to try traditional German food. It has a comfortable room and friendly staff, and delivers capable food. It does not appear to be pushing any culinary boundaries but then that is rather the point of a traditional restaurant.