Planerts Restaurant — Restaurant in Leipzig

This restaurant has high ambitions, but for our Friday night dining, they unfortunately fell short. It was a very quiet night, with maybe 3 or 4 tables filled, and two staff in the kitchen and one doing service. Contrary to their website and the ad on the door, they only opened at 19 instead of 18 o'clock. The atmosphere is relaxed and casual, and the interior tasteful. Unfortunately, we were somewhat cold, and even after the waiter said they'd turn up the heat, this was not resolved. The food is ambitious, and overall above average. But it does not match their ambitions or their price range: the mustard overpowered the avocado, and the tuna almost a non-entity. The quail egg was fried too long. The same flavor imbalance was obvious in the dim sum, where the semi-dry cherry tomatoes overwhelmed the otherwise interesting, I dare say fascinating, combination of fresh herbs entirely. The associated soy-tomato sauce was thin and weak. The soup was solid, even if the baked rice served an unclear purpose. The most disappointing dish was the Thai curry with halibut. The fish was not just firm, but downright dry and clearly too long in the pan. Fish should not be brittle! And the curry sauce strangely reminded me considerably of the soup before. My company had the duck however, and that was well executed, cooked to the point, and tasty. The dessert was very good. While the cream cheese foam was just slightly grainy (my guess: the white chocolate wasn't well tempered?), the passion fruit, dark chocolate mousse and milk chocolate mousse, and the outstanding cassis coconut layers were very well done indeed. Service was very friendly and professional.

Overall, my best guess is that we hit either an unlucky day or the quality has declined since the ratings...

Ich wollte dieses kleine Restaurant mögen. Die Einrichtung ist recht angenehm, die Lage ist sehr gut erreichbar. An der Wand hängt ein Gault & Millau 2021-Zertifikat und an der Tür ein Michelin-Aufkleber.

Aber ich schätze: Es ist ein paar Jahre her, seit ein richtiger Inspektor hier war.

Während unseres Besuchs arbeitete ein kleines Team aus Koch, Sous, Tellerwäscher und 2 Kellnern in dieser komplett offenen Küche, aber das war nicht genug. Die Kellner schienen überfordert, ahnungslos oder unbeaufsichtigt, obwohl das Restaurant an einem Abend unter der Woche nur zu einem Drittel besetzt war.

Ein kompetenter Kapitän und ein Sommelier könnten das Erlebnis hier leicht verbessern, indem sie die Kellner schulen und zwingen, sich auf ihre wichtigste erforderliche Fähigkeit zu konzentrieren – die Präsentation – der Speisekarte, des Essens, des Weins, des Restaurants selbst.

Beide Kellner hatten Schwierigkeiten, die Standardweine aus der Weinbegleitung zu präsentieren, wenn sie überhaupt daran dachten, sie zu jedem Gang zu servieren. Zumindest haben sie nichts auf mich oder den Tisch verschüttet.

Das Essen selbst war nicht allzu schlecht, und der Seeteufel hat mir geschmeckt … besonders nachdem ich gemerkt habe, dass er mir verkehrt herum auf dem Tisch präsentiert wurde.

Es ist enttäuschend zu sehen, wie viel Mühe (sichtbare Küche) die Köche in die Zubereitung stecken, und dann zuzusehen, wie ihre Arbeit durch eine schlechte Präsentation beeinträchtigt wird.

Ich hoffe, die Köche werden dieses Problem bald in den Griff bekommen. / I wanted to like this small restaurant. The decor is pleasant enough, the location is very accessible. There is a Gault & Millau 2021 certificate on the wall, and a Michelin sticker on the door.

But, my guess is: it has been a few years since an actual inspector has visited.

A small staff of chef, sous, dishwasher and 2 servers worked in this fully open kitchen during our visit, but it was not enough. The servers seemed overwhelmed, oblivious or unsupervised, despite the restaurant being only 1/3 occupied for a midweek night.

A competent captain and a sommelier would easily improve the experience here, training and forcing the servers to focus on their most important required skill - presentation - of the menu, the food, the wine, of the restaurant itself.

Both servers had difficulty presenting the standard wines from the wine pairing, if they even remembered to serve it with each of the courses. At least they did not spill any on me or the table.

The food itself was not too bad, and I enjoyed the monkfish… especially after I realized it was presented to me on the table backwards.

It is disappointing to see the effort (open kitchen) that the chefs spend to create, then watch their work be compromised by poor presentation.

I hope the chefs will control this problem...

We have been lucky that we visited this place during one of the “off-day” as one of the owner expalined cause usually they are full booked. Meal was absolutely amazing, all details and components were matching together . From my side - beef tartar was the best ! We liked a lot “open kitchen” concept where we could saw everything regarding meal preparation to communication between both chefs. Desing of the place was simple and really nice. Staff was very friendly and super cool despite that our 2,5 year old son was a little bit louder :) At the end we found out that one of the waiter is co-owner of this place so we had nice chat.

We are definitely comming...