Heidelberg: Cafes and eateries

For being home to so many sustainable and organic shopping opportunities Heidelberg has surprisingly few places serving organic food. The two I found are both very well suited for both, vegetarians and vegans, and essentially self-service, but I wasn't able to spot a single proper dinner restaurant where you're actually waited.

Both, lunch, snacks, coffee and dinner can be had at red buffet restaurant, next to the Alnatura organic supermarket on the premises of a former swimming pool opposite the Schwanenteich park. You can choose between two lunch dishes at a fixed price or serve yourself salads and warm one-pot dishes (all 100 percent and certified organic, vegetarian and often vegan) and pay by weight. Order drinks (cold drinks, teas or Italian-style coffee drinks) and predominantly vegan cakes and dessert at the cash desk while you pay, take your tray and find yourself a seat. For being an vegan-award winning restaurant I found the food quite uninspiring, without accentuated flavours, just good ingredients cooked together. Even the perfectly looking vegan hazelnut-espresso cake I had was missing a distinctive coffee flavour – good, but far from outstanding. Nevertheless the generally pleasant place was crowded (though not unpleasantly), perhaps due to missing alternatives. It's the only evening-open option for eating out, but closed on Sundays. You may also buy food to take with you.

The stylish yet positively unexcited Zeit für Brot bakery cafe in Hamburg is a pleasant neighbourhood spot for breakfast, lunch or a snack watching the bakers at work. So I was delighted to hear from niiebel that a new branch opened in Heidelberg in autumn 2023, and hope it's equally pleasant. Cinnamon roll addicts will hopefully find a favourite among the different varieties.

• Red, Poststr. 42, Mon–Sat 11:30–22
• Zeit für Brot, Hauptstr. 146, Mon–Fri(Sat–Sun) 8:30–20(19)

Closed

The city of Heidelberg still lists the following place in its latest guide to organic and local food, but the place unfortunately closed two years ago:

• Fein Food, Brückenstr. 1i1
• Café Steiner, Lutherstr. 28 (partially organic cafe)

Heidelberg: Zero Waste

For (re-)filling your kitchen cupboard and shop for un(pre)packaged food head straight to the northern shore of the Neckar river, to the Neuenheimer Markt market place. On Wednesday mornings (until 1 pm) a farmer's market is held here, but a few steps away you will also find the city's only package-free supermarket dubbed Annas Unverpacktes ("Anna's unwrapped goods") which with its outer wall made of turquoise tiles looks like a converted butcher's shop from the outside. As all zero waste convenience stores I've come across so far it's strictly vegetarian, but omnivores simply walk outside and turn left to find an artisanal butcher's shop at the next corner.

Until some years ago the Metzgerei Blatt was working according to the Neuland principles of animal welfare in meat production which are close to, but not fully organic, and in 2015 turned to fully organic principles. The shop was closed when I went there (as it's generally closed on Wednesday afternoons), but the owner assured me that the staff would fill my purchase into my own clean boxes as long as they were intended for personal consumation (instead of catering a bigger crowd). Ready-to-eat meat dishes are also available to take away.

Directly opposite the Neuenburger Markt there's also a shop of the local wholefood bakery Mahlzahn named after the dragon in Michael Ende's famous children's novel "Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver". Here the shop assistants will happily put your bread, rolls, sweet and savoury pastries into the bags or containers you present.

The bakery workshop itself is located in the Weststadt neighbourhood where you also can buy a small selection of loose-weight seasonal fruit and veges and assorted pre-packaged organic food items to supplement your breakfast, lunch or coffee table. When I went there in hope for an early organic breakfast it however turned out that this bakery doesn't follow the zeitgeist to serve coffee and snacks to eat on the spot everywhere -- no coffee machine here, no bar tables. (The rolls were delicious nevertheless.) Mind you that this bakery does not use white flour at all.

Altogether there are four Mahlzahn shops, all with identical opening hours, the third one located in the neighbourhood of Rohrbach, and the fourth in Handschuhsheim (literally: "glove's home").

In general you will have difficulties to find organic bakeries not willing to fill customer-provided clean bags and boxes, and the new (in 2023) Zeit für Brot shop thankfully make no exception.

To buy all items for a zero waste breakfast at one stop head for the city's branch of the Denn's organic supermarket chain: The staff at its meat, dairy and bakery counters offers to fill cheese, cured meat products, sausages and bakery items into your containers. If you buy a coffee drink on the go in your own cup you'll receive a 30 cents discount, and you can also buy lunch to take away in your own jars instead of having it at the self-service bistro.

The other nationwide operating organic supermarket brand, Alnatura, operates three branches in town. They do not have a dedicated focus on zero waste, but there's a slowly increasing assortment of food in returnable glasses (e.g. mayonnaise, "canned" corn and other preserves, or vegetable spread) apart from unpackaged fruits, vegetables, and bakery produce. Unfortunately you must be familiar with the glass types to find them, and they are always among the most expensive options.

If you prefer independent shops the two Fair & Quer supermarkets in the neighbourhoods of Handschuhsheim and Wieblingen are worth a try. Unfortunately I did not have the chance to visit them (as advised by my Mastodonbubble), so I cannot say whether their waste and package reduction measures exceed those of comparable dedicated organic supermarkets in Germany. The shop in Wieblingen offers organic lunch Monday through Friday from noon to 2pm.

Student initiatives

I wasn't much surprised to hear from my Mastodon bubble about zero-waste and repair initiatives run by the university's students' parliament. Unfortunately I have not had the time to visit the campus, but I happily list them here: The self-service bike repair shop Urrmel and the package-free organic food co-operative Appel un' Ei. The latter is located between "Chez Pierre" and "Café Botanik" at the university's main refectory and is regularly offering lunch made with produce from a communal market garden.

• Annas Unverpacktes, Ladenburger Str. 37, Tue-Sat 10-18:30
• Bio-Metzgerei Blatt, Ladenburger Str. 41, Mon-Fri(Sat) 8(7:30)-13, Mon-Tue,Thu-Fri 15-18
• Vollkornbäckerei Mahlzahn Neuenheim, Ladenburger Str. 15, Mon-Fri(Sat) 8-18:30(13)
• Vollkornbäckerei Mahlzahn Weststadt, Gaisbergstr. 74, Mon-Fri(Sat) 8-18:30(13)
• Denn's, Bahnhofsstr. 33, Mon-Sat 9-20
• Alnatura, Langer Anger 7-9, Mon-Sat 8-20
• Alnatura Weststadt, Rohrbacher Straße 73, Mon-Sat 8-20
• Alnatura Altes Hallenbad, Poststraße 36/5, Mon-Sat 8-20

More to try

Here are a few more shops which I found during my research but didn't manage to visit myself:

• Vollkornbäckerei Mahlzahn Rohrbach, Rathausstr. 1, Mon-Fri(Sat) 8-18:30(13)
• Vollkornbäckerei Mahlzahn Handschuhsheim, Mühltalstr. 2, Mon-Fri(Sat) 8-18:30(13)
• Fair & Quer Wieblingen, Adlerstr. 1, Mon-Fri(Sat) 8-20(18)
• Fair & Quer Handschuhsheim, Steubenstr. 52, Mon-Wed(Thu-Fri) 8-19(20), Sat 8-16
• Appel un' Ei, Im Neuenheimer Feld 304a, Mon-Thu 16-18 plus usually 12-14 outside the semester break
• URRmEL, Im Neuenheimer Feld 706, Tue,Thu 16-20 outside the semester break, Thu 14-20 during semester break, PH closed

Closed

You may still find references to the following organic grocery on the web, but be assured it's no longer there:

• Apfel und Korn, Märzgasse 16 (convenience store)

Heidelberg: Sustainable shopping

As a tourist you will most certainly head for the old town, walking down the Hauptstraße ("main street") pedestrian street. While the western part of this street is inhabited by the ever-boring major chains, the eastern part with its small-scale owner-run shops is definitely worth a shopping spree, preferably to enterprises striving to sell sustainable, often fairly traded goods.

Looking for dedicated environment-friendly kitchen and bathroom utensils, toys, fashion accessories, stationary, gifts or design items you must not miss out the green design department store GOODsHOUSE a little west of Schiffsgasse. The shop itself isn't visible from the main street -- walk down a little aisle into the backyard to find a lovingly arranged two-storey shopping paradise. The staff is friendly and helpful, yet not intrusive and will happily offer to order items not in stock.

A few steps further west, at the corner with Heumarkt an equally carefully designed cosmetics boutique dubbed Wolkenseifen ("cloud soaps") is the flagship store of a local near-natural cosmetics manufacturer. In addition you'll find (certified) organic and natural cosmetics brands usually not to be found in your nearest organic supermarket -- among them Chia, Madara, or Khadi --, and a great selection of zero waste body care like hair and body soaps, solid shampoos or solid toothpaste.

Fair and slow fashion seems to be quite strong in Heidelberg where even otherwise conventional clothes boutiques like Bofinger in the main street trade in fair and organic labels like Armedangels. My stay was too short to pay a visit to all the places on my short list, but I managed to have a glimpse inside Tutta Natura selling sustainably produced French shoes and women's clothes for lovers of classic eco-design in the Plöck running parallel with the main street.

November 2018 saw the re-opening of former fair fashion store cum cafe Friedrich as a Glore concept store offering organic fashion for all, women, men and kids as well as a small selection of organic body care.

Heidelberg is home to a number of community-driven one-world shops selling fairly traded fashion accessories, household items, dry food, sweets, coffee and tea, the latter often certified organic. One of them is Una Tierra at the market place Neuenheim, another one the Weltladen in the old town with a small cafe, offering fairly traded coffee drinks, cocoa or tea while you crawl the shop or let you inspire by the bookshelf.

• GOODsHOUSE, Hauptstr. 113a (backyard), Mon–Fri(Sat) 11–19(18)
• Wolkenseifen, Hauptstr. 135, Mon–Sat 10–19
• Tutta Natura, Plöck 27, Tue–Fri(Sat) 12(11)–18(15)
• Glore, Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage 1, Mon–Fri(Sat) 10:30–19(18)
• Weltladen Heidelberg-Altstadt, Heugasse 2, Mon–Sat 11–18
• Una Tierra, Lutherstr. 13a, Tue–Fri(Sat) 10(9)–18:30(14)

Here's a list of shops which I had on my list for research but didn't manage to visit myself. Let me know about your experience!

Heidelberg: Organic Ice-cream

If you still want to have an organic ice-cream on the go on a weekday in 2018, hurry up! The GelaTo Go on Hauptstraße pedestrian street in the old town is going to shut down for the winter on the 11th of November, to re-open February, 17th 2019. Despite its mock-English name it's a true Italian ice-cream parlour, also serving organic coffee drinks with or without cow milk or soy drink. About half of their ice-cream types are fully organic, among them a delicate after eight and a matcha green tea variety alongside more ordinary flavours. All scoops, organic and conventional, come at 1.30 EUR the scoop, both here and in the second branch in the Bahnstadt neighbourhood South of the main train station.

For German ice-cream head for the fully organic Bioeismanufaktur in the Weststadt. During the winter monthes they are supposed to keep open on Sunday afternoons when bakery and confectioner's courses are held on the premises, too.

• Gelato Go, Hauptstr. 100, warm(cold) season daily 10(11)-24(19) (or shorter, depending on the weather), closed from mid of Nov through February
• Gelato Go Bahnstadt, Nightingalestr. 1, daily 10-22 (adapting to the weather, probably also winter-closed)
• Bio-Eismanufaktur, Kleinschmidtstr. 1, Mar-Apr(May-Oct) daily 12-18(20 or longer on nice weather days), Nov-Dec Fri-So 13-18

Germany: Heidelberg

• Cafes, eateries and restaurants
• Sustainable shopping -- fashion, gifts and more
• Organic ice-cream
• Zero waste shopping