Zur Ratsmühle — Restaurant in Hamburg

Back in 2016, my brother and I were taking a train tour across England, Germany and Belgium, and we stayed in Hamburg near the Ohlsdorf trainshop. We wanted someplace local, and we wanted actual german food (not pizza/etc).

So, we came to Zur RatsMuhle. I had a schnitzel and my brother had a Jager-something (pork chop with onions mushrooms etc). Both came with French Fries. Both were quite good. And we had a couple of biers, of course.

It was late evening, on like a wednesday, and it wasnt very busy. So the owner or manager came by to chat with us. (Or maybe it was just because her English was way better than our Deutsch).

Frau ??, she was friendly and after asking about the food, she asked about our trip to Hamburg. When we said we were tourists here to see the city, at first she suggested that Berlin or Munchen (Munich) are more popular with tourists.

With our limited German skills, we finally managed to convey that while Berlin and Munich were both fine, we came to Hamburg to see "real" germany.

This made Frau ?? smile proudly and she was happy to chat more with us about the city. But then she looked at our meals, the "pom frites" / french fries that came with our meals, was not "proper german" food.

She chatted briefly with our waitress, and then insisted that if we wanted to try real Germany we should have real german potatoes. And they brought out the side dish for us to try, free of charge.

The German potatoes, was a diced or scolloped and fried potatoes, with sauted onions, and bacon. Along with some seasonings, maybe parsley or scallions. (it has been a while).

The potatoes were excellent.

To this day, my brother and I tell this story about our experience.

I hope that everyone will have just as wonderful a time...

Delicious and friendly restaurant with a beautiful view of the canal. My family visited Hamburg from the USA and we loved this restaurant. We do not speak much German, but between the Owner's English and Google Translate we communicated just fine. The food was wonderful- especially the traditional schnitzel and Kaiserschuarm dessert and they didn't even laugh at me when I ordered a Radler. We will definitely stop here to eat again next time we are in the city, but I will be sure to book a reservation next time to sit by the canal.

A few tips to USA visitors, which apply to most German restaurants: Expect to pay for water, even tap water- it's not a trick, and it's not crazy expensive. Don't expect a free bathroom, they frequently cost $$- though, thankfully, Zur Ratsmuhle had one for free, bonus!! Don't take pictures of other people to post online- they own the rights to their own image. Use the image option on Google Translate to translate whole pages of a menu at once and look up new food items to see what they are. Generally expect to take your time eating and enjoy your meal- tables are not turned over as quickly...

The food was delicious and nicely arranged. For the price I would rate it 5 stars. The service was abysmal. We did not receive menus and had to get them ourselves. Three servers were walking past us without acknowledging us. After 10 minutes our server came and ask us in a very rude and annoyed tone if we had made our choices already. When the starters arrived the tone was even worse. Halfway through our starters the kitchen porter cane and polished the silverware at the neighboring table, sometimes dropping it and than picking it up and right in with the clean dishes. After we asked for the check we had to wait over 15 minutes at which point I went to pay at the bar. The food is enjoyable but the service...