Alt Helgoländer Fischerstube — Restaurant in Hamburg

Wine was sour and they refused to take it off the check or even discount it or compensate for it in any way. The fish was drowning in butter, turns your stomach.

Considering the circumstances, service was okay.

**

Edit after reply of restaurant: It saddens me that the restaurant is talking back on their customers, twisting things and portraying them as not able to taste wine.

I know good wine since I attend wine tastings every now and then and that wine was definitely not good anymore. It was not only the Riesling but also the Grauburgunder that wasn’t good (not sour though but simply not a good one).

Plus, there was no offer to try the wine beforehand. In every decent restaurant I’ve been to, the waiter pours only a little amount of wine into someone’s glass and then waits until the customer approves. Here, the waiter poured almost 1/4 into the glass and ran away, even though the restaurant was almost empty that time of the day. So, why should we have ordered another wine when obviously, it’s not possible to taste it beforehand? That is why we were so dissatisfied.

The food appeared to be okay at first (very buttery but okay). Later that day, we felt both sick (although we didn’t eat more food for the next hours). Could’ve been the sip of wine though, since it was sour, or the combination of both. However, our critique refers mainly to the wine issue and how they...

This is a place, if you want to taste authentic north-german food. My wife and I ordered the Hamburg Eel Soup, "Lange Anna" and Pickled Young Herring ala Helgoland.

Lange Anna : Flaky texture of the fish fillets. The sauce was so smooth. The cheesy and creamy flavour profile of the sauce were perfect for cold days. The basmati rice was a superb side dish to soak up the sauce.

Pickled Young Herring ala Helgoland : The three different sauces were the highlights of this dish. This was an acquired taste for foreign tourists though. However, this was one of the iconic dishes of North Germany.

Hamburg Eel Soup : The acidic taste of the soup brightened the fishy aroma. However, the restaurant could work on taste of the eel in the future. The strong freshwater aroma, especially from the skin and fat layer of the eel pieces somewhat disturbed. Slightly bigger, more eel pieces or using smoked eels instead of the fresh one could have accentuated this...

The guy at the front desk is exceptionally rude. I have never experienced such a behaviour from any restaurant staff. We asked for a table while the restaurant was full of free places. He did not even look at our faces and he literally said "you are not lucky enough to eat here!" . We were shocked. My feeling was that he act like that because we talked german with accent. He and other staffs are clearly extreme racists. Of course , they should have been banned for such a behaviour. I hope some day , somebody take the action to make them responsible. I was a tourist and cant do more than this comment.( I guess) Finally, I would appreciate the costumers to take in the account this miss behaviours (racism) before eating...