2 JS O - 3 years ago
In my opinion, Stefan Hermann is the culinary saint of Dresden. Not only is Bean u0026 Beluga the home of fine dining in the city, he runs a beer garden, christmas market stall, theatre restaurant etc, as though he is determined to ensure that the people of Dresden can eat and drink well whatever they are up to. We first ate at Bu0026B 6 years ago and make a point of seeking out any associated venue whenever we are in Dresden.
The predecessor of Hirsch 32 was a simple but high-quality bistro where one could have a plate of pasta with a glass of riesling from, say, A. Christmann or Weingut Wittmann. We were hoping for more of the same, albeit with a Swabian twist.
We had mentioned in our email when we booked and again when we called ahead that we were all vegetarian and had been told that they would talk to us about that when we got there. But the waitstaff seemed bemused by the concept. In the absence of other options, we both chose the kaesespaetzle (cheese noodles) and a smaller portion for our son, along with a side salad to share.
A plate of bread and butter was brought for us to share. The bread was fine (decent, not great) but, in a rather startling sign of things to come, stale on one side. And not just a bit stale, we are talking hard and dry on one side (though tolerably fresh on the other).
All 3 plates of spaetzle came with a strange smell of burnt hair, the source of which we never managed to identify, but apart from that, the food was fine. Neither better nor worse than one can order all over southern Germany.
I finished ahead of my wife and son and my plate was promptly cleared, while they continued to eat. I consider this a minor but ultimately fatal sin in restaurant service. It may not seem like much but it is jarring for those who are still eating and should be elementary to get right for decently-trained waitstaff.
Once we had all finished, a waitress promptly asked us whether we would like anything else: "hatten Sie noch einen Wunsch?". Fair enough, except that we had barely finished and had not been shown the dessert menu. We wondered if we were being hurried out and looked at each other uncomfortably. We were half-minded to leave but at the same time willing to give them a second chance if only they could get something right. The waitress instead rolled her eyes and looked around, emphasising that we were taking too long to answer a simple question while she had better things to do. We put her out of her misery by asking if we could see a dessert menu.
"Of course" she said, and handed us one menu to share between us. Another minor niggle, you might think, but they were building up. One of the 3 dessert options was the cake of the day, which, of course, nobody had identified for us. We decided to call it quits and asked for the bill...
... which was 80 euro. We'd each had 2 small beers if you are doing your sums but something seemed wrong. We checked and the problem was obvious: 11.50 for the kid's pasta and 21 each for ours. Now, I have no problem paying good money for good food. But did they not realise this was just a plate of spaetzle?!
We decided to make our point while trying to avoid conflict by asking the waitress, as we paid, who it was who had decided on the price of 21 euro (not on the menu) for a plate of spaetzle. The head chef, we were told. But to our surprise she seemed also personally aggrieved and started to argue the point (so much for our desire to avoid conflict), challenging us as to whether we had a problem and pointing out that they had simply doubled the price advertised on the menu for the kaesespaetzle because we had (somewhat unwittingly) ordered it as a "hauptgang" (i.e. main course). Determined to keep things light, I laughed and said that it was a lot for a plate of spaetzle but for some reason she seemed to be taking it very personally and fumed at us a bit more.
Er, so there we have it. I still have warm feelings for Stefan Hermann but I won't pretend they have not been damaged a bit by this experience.
