The Organic Traveller
Friday, 31 December 2021

Organic Augsburg: Eat & sleep

One of the oldest cities in Germany, with roots back in Roman history, a rich medieval history – including the world's oldest intact social housing project, the Fuggerei –, and the birthplace of Bertolt Brecht, one of the most influential writers in modern theatre, Augsburg is without doubt worth a visit. Conveniently located on the railway tracks between Munich and Nuremberg, urban trains ("Regionalbahn"/"Regionalexpress") from Munich central station depart twice an hour (at day time) and can be used with the Bayernticket flat-rate ticket for Bavaria which is the budget option if you plan to travel from and to Munich on one day (one way takes about 45 minutes). Augsburg is also an ICE/IC train stop: These high velocity trains will save you about a quarter of an hour on this route, but tickets usually come at a significantly higher price.

Bayerischer Wirt

If you plan to stay overnight there's a pleasant fully organic hotel about three kilometers from the main train station, the Bayerischer Wirt, a certified Bio Hotel in the suburb of Lechhausen, yet easily accessible by tram and bus or bike. Although the hotel is located directly at a noisy main road, the outdoor seating area in the backyard is a peaceful oasis. The hotel restaurant serves Bavarian meat and fish dishes as well as internationally inspired vegetarian ones – with varying results: While the roasted meat was perfectly done (rare as requested, caramelized yet melting), and served with the most delicate onion crisps I've ever tasted, the strips of veal in mustard cream were quite bland and uninspired – health food with boringly blanched veges and saltless (though home-made) spaetzle. Instead of ordering bottled mineral water you may fetch tap water from the water dispenser at no cost. Needless to say that all drinks are organic, too, and the aperitifs were a pleasant refreshment in the summer heat. The dessert menu is quite limited – prefab organic ice-cream, home-made cakes and a parfait when I visited.

If a healthy local kitchen with liberal opening hours does not satisfy your expectations of a city vacation, there are two promising day cafes easily reachable for cyclists on the way from the main station to Lechhausen: Café Himmelgrün near the banks of the river Lech in Berliner Allee serves fully organic breakfast, lunch, coffee and cakes, and you can also find sustainable gifts and nice things. The cafe is run by Augsburg-based organic bakery Schubert – you may have come across the name at the bakery counters of organic supermarkets, both in Munich, Nuremberg and elsewhere in Bavaria.

In front of the cafe's outdoor area the bakery has installed a mobile sales booth for bread, snacks and cakes of yesterday's production, from the quality control desks, with short best-before date or small blemishes, all sold at low fixed prices: A kilogram of bread for example comes at 3 EUR, yesterday's savoury snacks at 1 EUR the piece, and six pieces of cake at 7 EUR. Customers are encouraged to reduce waste and take home their purchase in their own bags or boxes. Unfortunately the booth dubbed Grünfux deluxe is closed in the afternoon as well as on Mondays and on weekends.

Augsburg's long history of textile fabric production, print and trade is reflected in the Bavarian State Textile and Industry Museum, less than 10 minutes from the inner city hotspot Königsplatz by tram no. 6. The museum's cafe dubbed nunó (from the Japanese word for "cloth") is not only a charming spot in an impressive industrial building of a former spinning mill, but also predominantly and certified organic, serving light and internationally inspired lunch, breakfast and Sunday brunch, and of course a recreational coffee. Meat, bread, veges, and eggs are reliably organic and of regional origin if possible while drinks at the bar are still predominantly conventional. As most museums the place is closed on Mondays and – except for special occasions – in the evenings.

If you are so unfortunate to strand before closed doors the next organic supermarket with a small bistro – a branch of the Denn's Biomarkt chain – is located in walking distance.

Inner city

Dreizehn

My absolute favourite for meeting friends or family is the cosy day cafe and bar Dreizehn within the Kresslesmühle cultural centre. The food is 100 percent vegan, properly seasoned and absolutely delicious. There's a daily changing special meal (a marvellously filling mushroom-spiced polenta with ratatouille, fried organic tofu crumbles and salad when I was there) in addition to the small standard menu. Unfortunately it's not possible to have breakfast yet, and when you cannot sit outside next to the old mill stream due to weather conditions it's advisable to book a table.

Anna

In the backyard of St. Anne's church, the Annahof next to the fenced city market, the church parish gives host to a lively all-day cafe restaurant cum bar dubbed Anna with a great outdoor area, which is open in the evenings, too. The place serves lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch inspired by international kitchens. Once it was certified organic, but since it no longer is the restaurant is not allowed to advertise with organic ingredients. Nevertheless the managing director assured me that they were still using as much organic produce as before: both eggs, milk and most fruit come from organic farms and distributors in the vicinity. On the menu you'll find organic beer (Lammsbräu), on occasions organic wine (ask for it), lemonade (charitea) and ice-tea. For breakfast you can have organic crunchy cereals, and the bread comes from the Schubert bakery. Unfortunately meat products usually aren't organic. During the warm season the cafe sells organic ice-cream to take away in a biscuit cone, delivered by the Cramer's confectioner's. Only plain flavours like vanilla, chocolate, plan hazelnut and lemon were available in July 2019, the scoop at 1.50 EUR.

For a light vegan lunch bowl or a smoothie stop by 100 percent organic ice-cream shop Juice 'n Cream in the Ulrichsviertel neighbourhood.

If you are in the mood for a pizza there's a branch of the partially organic NineOFive chain at Fuggerplatz.

For a no-frills coffee, snack or lunch you may also head for the self-service cafe at the city branch of the Basic organic supermarket chain between the state theatre and the cathedral.

Want a liquid give-a-away or treat yourself with a good bottle of organic wine or high-quality juice? Uli Scheffler Weinhandel in the Bismarckviertel is one of those small owner-run shops that create the soul of a city: Describe your occasion, and Uli will come up with a suggestion for you that (as to my taste and knowledge) will work (and taste) perfectly. While the shop keeps open on Saturdays you'll have to go without his advice as you'll find Uli at the Mariahilf farmers' market in Munich on that day of the week.

Bäckerei Schubert Königsplatz

Around the main train station – bakeries and package-free

For last minute travel provisions you can buy an organic snack or sandwich at the Hofpfisterei bakery branch five minutes from the main train station. Unfortunately it's closed both on Saturdays and Sundays.

If you have some more time the city's package-free supermarket Ruta Natur is located no more than 10 minutes from the train station, directly on the way to the Stadtmarkt market place.

Alternatively you may proceed to the Schubert branch at the tram hub of Königsplatz. There used to be a serviced day cafe but after some reconstruction work the area of the bakery shop has diminished to the sales counter and a small self-service area where you may sit down with a sandwich or snack. When the weather is nice there are also chairs and tables outside. The coffee drinks from the automatic machine could taste better, but everything is organic.

There's another Schubert branch inside the city market, around the corner from St. Anne's church (and you'll find another Hofpfisterei branch there, too).

Sunday-open in Hochzoll

To buy fresh bread, rolls or cake on a Sunday morning you have to commute to 12-Apostel-Platz in Augsburg-Hochzoll where the only Sunday-open Schubert branch is located. It also sports a cafe, most suitable on weekdays, though.

More on Augsburg

Closed

2021-12-31 20:45:01 [Augsburg, Augusta, organic, vegan, vegetarian, breakfast, lunch, dinner, Franconian, German, restaurant, eatery, hotel, accommodation, ice-cream, cafe, coffee, supermarkets, grocery, bakeries, zero_waste, unverpackt, wine] Link

Creative Commons Licence

This work by trish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For commercial use contact the author: E-mail · Mastodon · Vero · Ello.

Thursday, 04 November 2021

Nuremberg: Organic and partially organic restaurants and eateries

Each year Nuremberg plays host to what probably is the world's most important organic trade fair, Biofach, and the city has been wisely using the publicity that comes with the event. If you happen to be in Nuremberg around fair time you will see several communal events around organic food and agriculture. In 2016 the city organized an organic gourmet week during which participating restaurants and eateries offered fully organic gourmet meals at fixed prices even when they otherwise do so only partially. Visitors and citizens could download communally sponsored discount vouchers for these meals. Thanks to efforts like this Nuremberg has become a city where the extra effort to find organic lunch or dinner is comparatively small.

Engelhardts

Asian

Love Asian food? Although there's an abundance of Asian kitchens in Bavaria, it's hard to find the few that are using organic ingredients. So take your chance and dine at Engelhardts located in a beautiful lane of St. Sebald. The hotel restaurant of the family-run boutique Hotel Elch it serves 100 percent organic Thai and Laotic-style food, naturally also as a room service. Note that the place is closed on Sun- and holidays.

French

The first address in town is a cosy, almost 40 years old organic creperie, Ye'chet mad in the Südstadt neighbourhood. The audience is dominated by students, artists, theatre and cinema goers, professionals in art and culture and those interested in the resulting atmosphere. Many combine a visit with a movie in the adjacent arthouse cinema. You will be served a huge variety of fully organic whole-meal crepes, pleasantly thin, both sweet and savoury, as a main course and/or dessert. French salads, soups and appetizers round up the menu.

Franconian

A five minutes brisk walk from tube station Friedrich-Ebert-Platz you will find an organic pub of old, the Frankenstube. As you might expect they serve rustic local dishes, but there's a long list of vegan and vegetarian versions. Indeed, the vegan cabbage roll served with a hearty tomato sauce and pasta was very tasty, and not bland at all. All organic dishes are clearly marked as such on the menu but you should be aware (especially when it comes to meat dishes) that the ones without the bio keyword are conventional fare. The beer isn't organic (nor are the cakes), but the wine is. The place seems to be a favourite among locals, crowded even on a weekday evening.

Engelhardts 2.0

Ever wanted to try the Franconian speciality of Schäufele? When I discovered the newly established fully organic restaurant Engelhardts 2.0 at the Hauptmarkt the day after its opening I did not notice at first that they also offered this and other meat-based dishes. Italian-inspired vegetarian sandwiches and yummy vegan Austrian "Mehlspeisen" (sweet and filling flour-based desserts which also can be eaten as a course of its own) like the Kaiserschmarrn and the Dampfnudel yeast dumpling were visible and welcome after the guided walk around the monstrosities of the Nazi party rally grounds at that cold October afternoon in 2021.

The new sister of the Engelhardts hotel restaurant with its open kitchen and clean bistrot appearance (to know that this location had been a McDonald's before explains a lot of the interior design) felt very new that day, indeed: The service was friendly but still a little slow and unconfident, and we were forced to have our vegan latte in one-way paper cups as the glasses got broken in transport. Since the latte was made with oat drink without asking I got the impression of a vegan restaurant which the place is not. A closer look at the menu showed a happy mix of regional and international soulfood, preferably made with local ingredients, and I'll most certainly give it a second try during my next stay in the city.

Burgers

Shabby chic with cartoon and neon elements make the environment for Auguste (formerly "Klein-August") in Sankt Peter south of the railway tracks. Unusually for a burger grill it's not self-service but a family-friendly pub popular with women. The kitchen closes at 10 pm (on Sundays at 9 pm). Some beer and soft drinks are organic as are the burger buns which are made from spelt, the meat and the currywurst sausage. They have a good selection of vegan and vegetarian burgers, too. The name of the place changed from Klein-August to Auguste when the bigger Auguste restaurant in the Künstlerhaus K4 next to the main train station had to close due to ongoing reconstruction work.

Vegan

If you prefer pizza or a totally vegan place (also serving burgers) head for the Veganel pizzeria and eatery in the Gostenhof neighbourhood. Aside the pizze (with plant-based cheese substitute) and burgers you can also have stews, pasta, bowls, cake and more in pleasant no-frills surroundings. The ingredients are all organic and to a great extend grown in the greater region and seasonal. There'a also choice of wheat and soy-free dishes. Unlike other eateries this one is open for dinner.

Ceased to exist

The following places shut down and where replaced by other, not organic ones. So don't be confused when you find references to them on the web:

2021-11-04 19:00:00 [Nuremberg, organic, vegan, vegetarian, lunch, dinner, French, Franconian, German, fastfood, burgers, pizza, restaurant, trainstation, hotel, accommodation, covid, corona] Link

Creative Commons Licence

This work by trish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For commercial use contact the author: E-mail · Mastodon · Vero · Ello.