Excellent food and uninspired beverages at Stadtpfeiffer Leipzig

Stadtpfeiffer is still the second-best restaurant in Leipzig (after Falco) and has deservedly held on to its one Michelin star for some years now. This wasn't a stellar evening, but the food was very good, and a couple of dishes (pigeon liver; eel confit in green cabbage) were superb. As ever, expensive at 180 Euros per person (with wine but without service). But folks, this is Germany, Eastern Germany, where the Volk tends to prefer hormone-antibiotic-fed muck, and spend its money on another BMW... Sourcing ingredients for haute cuisine in these parts is hard work.

The few that save up to eat at the Stadtpfeiffer (this is personal, I don't own a BMW) get perfect service (professional, friendly, polite and unobtrusive - still almost UNHEARD of in Sachsens gastonomic wasteland). Alas, the wine list is disappointing given the quality of the food; too much local patriotism (Saale-Unstrut, Sachsen) and not enough ingenuity (and nothing from Italy, Spain, Austria or the New World to raise quality and keep prices moderate). The wines by the glass are fully representative of the rest of the list (unless you absolutely have to experience a half bottle of Yquem 1996(!) for 240 Euros before dying) so we stuck to them this evening.

• 2005 Benoît Lahaye Champagne Grand Cru Brut Millésimé 85 Points

  France, Champagne, Champagne Grand Cru

  Promising pinot-led scent, fine supple mousse, but rather heavy dosage masking the cracks on the chardonnay-dominated palate. Short, bad-tempered finish

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2005 Albert Mann Riesling Schlossberg 89 Points

  France, Alsace, Alsace Grand Cru

  drwine2001 wrote a great TN on 30.12.2009 with an exact description of this wine's scent - thanks! I only disagree on one point: this is no longer "light on its feet", but has a massively ripe entry to a spicy, sweetish palate. Very good with pigeon liver at the excellent "Stadtpfeiffer" restaurant in Leipzig; the best wine this evening, if too sweet for my taste in "dry" Alsace riesling. Fully mature, will keep 4 years. 89P(-)

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2009 Prinz zur Lippe Weissburgunder Drei Musketiere 84 Points

  Germany, Sachsen

  Odd wine, this. Superb fresh oak barrique treatment, but rather mediocre and underripe pinot blanc material - with drinkable but disconcerting results. All sorts of underripe fruit notes (familiar to anyone who has tried to buy fresh fruit in Eastern Germany during the winter months) and an alarmingly green colour (like a Chablis with food colouring). Worked well with St. Jacques/Jakobsmuschel, but not remotely worth 10 Euros/10cl... 84P

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2000 Château Gombaude-Guillot 88 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Libournais, Pomerol

  Luxurious scent of sweet, fresh, bloody, freshly butchered steak. Palate silky smooth but one-dimensional; short inexpressive finish. Fully mature now, will hold 5 years. 88P

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

My favourite German food writer, Wolfram Siebeck, has described the Stadtpfeiffer as "a mountain peak towering above the tiny ripples of the general standard of cooking in the region". Indeed, the best that can be said for the Leipzig restaurant scene is that it is the only patch of dim light between Berlin and Dresden (against a pitch-black background of provincial Eastern Germany even 20 years after the fall of the wall). In the heartland of MSG and frozen pizza, chef Herr Schlegel tries very hard, but it is worth sticking to longer-lived seafish and avoiding the oysters and St. Jacques/Jakobsmuscheln in favour of river fish. Leipzig is a very long way from the sea. He evidently finds it much easier to source game and meat. Unnecessarily the espresso comes from a WMF fully-automatic machine and tastes accordingly mediocre. Perhaps inevitably, the local mineral water comes at a 1133% markup, turning a 70 Cent 75cl glass bottle of H2O into a 8 Euro ripoff.