Wittenberger Kartoffelhaus Zum Schwarzen Bär — Restaurant in Wittenberg

The Kartoffelhaus restaurant was warmly recommended to me by my hotel receptionist.

Having browsed their website it states they don't use convenience (aka industrial) products so encouraged by the positive reviews I had to try it out.

I was lucky to find a table by the window on a Sunday (probably because it was rainy and in the late afternoon).

The chairs at the table are ancient and probably belong in the city's museum because they make unpleasant noises at the slightest movement.

The potato 🥔 soup was extremely salty so I returned it to the kitchen. The kind waitresses (I found the service on both visits to be overall superb) took it off the bill without me asking which was a nice gesture.

The chicken with potato spätzle and rich cream was delicious but the only vegetable in it was canned mushrooms.

It is the end of May and this region has fantastic fresh mushrooms that are also cheap at the farmer's market.

That they don't use them says more about the average profile of their customers than it says about them.

The kaiserschmarnn with cherries 🍒was a mixed experience. It was a very generous portion and the cherries were delicious but the rest was very dry and uninspiring.

It was edible but not remotely resembling the rich and buttery kaiserschmarnn I used to eat as a child on skiing trips in Kitzbühl, Austria 🇦🇹

Today I was the first customer a few minutes before 11 am. I ordered a rump steak and a jacket potato with herb butter.

The steak was a fairly good quality piece of meat but it was grilled yesterday and only slightly warmed.

I had a runny bowl at 15:30 today possibly a result of the steak kept at room temperature for many hours but I also drank two coffees and ate a cake 🍰 in a cafe in town so I will give the Kartoffelhaus the benefit of the doubt.

It had a lot of salt granules over it. Luckily it was not covered in a sauce because the latter would probably have been so salty it would render the steak inedible.

The jacket potato was tasty but the butter is not great. The amount of herb butter on the table must have been over 250 grams which is an amount even five people would struggle with let alone one.

I would much prefer lesser quantity and higher quality butter.

Whatever happened to the German saying "Weniger ist mehr"?

It is a question I will leave you to ponder on but as for me I will stick to eating only Asian food when in Germany because the age of culinary miracles here seems to have ended sometime in the late...

Ordered food and water. After 30 minutes of waiting it turned out my food order didn't get through the 'system'. I asked to cancel it. Yet, they insisted I should still pay for my water.... and they cannot accept my credit card cause it is below 10 euros! I was suggested to go to the ATM and come back with cash or wait another 10 minutes for the food. I tried to explain the ridiculousness of their request and that, in fact, they should not even charge me for water since the food order has been forgotten. To no avail. I decided to wait for food. The stew was just ok (thus 2 stars not 1). Neither discount nor freebie offered. No manager came to...

2 Tage nacheinander dort gegessen und es hätte nicht unterschiedlicher sein können. Erster Tag: Draußen gesessen, freundliche Bedienung, tolles Essen, Mindestabstand eingehalten = hohes Trinkgeld. Da es uns am 1. Tag so gut gefallen hatte, haben wir für den darauffolgenden Tag gleich reserviert. Zweiter Tag: Reservierte Gäste mussten drinnen sitzen, Laufkunden konnten draußen sitzen (Logik erschließt sich mir allerdings immer noch nicht). Man führte uns zu unserem Tisch, der in einer Ecke war, wo man schon fast hätte klettern müssen, um diesen zu erreichen. Mindestabstand Fehlanzeige. Da war kein halber Meter Abstand und man hätte dem nächsten Gast bereits auf dem Schoß gesessen. Dort war nicht mal ein Fenster geöffnet oder ein Luftzug. Gar nichts. Auf meinen Einwand, dass hier auch mit viel Fantasie der Mindestabestand nicht eingehalten eingehalten werden kann, wurden wir von der Kellnerin angeschnauzt. Null Professionaliät. Würde da jemand vom Ordnungsamt/Gesundsheitsamt kommen, dann wäre das Restaurant dicht. Wir haben dann einen anderen Tisch erhalten, aber das wir unerwünscht waren, hat man uns den ganzen Abend spüren lassen. Das Essen war auch am 2. Tag gut, dass möchte ich nicht unerwähnt lassen. Insgesamt war viel zu wenig Personal da. Die Kellnerinnen waren alle überlastet. Hinter der Theke wurde sich lautstark über die Gäste und eigene Kolleginnen ausgelassen. Kleiner fun fact: Um uns herum wurde dann penibel auf die Einhaltung der Hygienevorschriften geachtet. Karten desinfiziert, Tische abgewischt etc. (im restlichen Teil des Restaurants war das egal). Wahrscheinlich dachte man, wir sind vom...