The Duchy

The Duchy restaurant is in the historically important luxury Breidenbacher Hof hotel in Düsseldorf. This European style restaurant on the first floor of the hotel has Executive Chef Philipp Ferbe. This was just a simple lunch. I had Weiner schnitzel (€48) with a side dish of white asparagus, this being the very last week of the asparagus season here. The asparagus (€34) was from a farm near Düsseldorf and was served with new potatoes and hollandaise sauce. The asparagus stalks were large and tender, lightly cooked and excellent. They didn’t quite compare with the very best of asparagus from Loire valley but were certainly very good. This was also true of the schnitzel, offered with cranberry sauce. The schnitzel coating was thin, light and golden, the veal inside not overcooked as often happens with this dish. This was very good schnitzel and lovely asparagus (easily 14/20). Weiner schnitzel is a 19th century dish first mentioned in a cookbook in 1831.

For dessert, strawberries, from a local farm called Benninghoven just a few kilometres north of Düsseldorf, had lovely flavour. The fruit came with a champagne and lavender mousse and a pretty tuile, with pieces of honeycomb made from Breidenbacher honey (from beehives kept on the roof of the hotel) providing a firm textural contrast. This was a simple enough dish, but the fruit was unusually good (14/20).

Service was charming and the bill came to €93.50 (£80) each, including a glass of good weissburgunder wine. The mineral water at €13.40 was actually pricier than the glass of wine. Duchy is not aiming to push any culinary envelopes but offers classical dishes that are very well executed, based on this meal.