The Organic Traveller
Tuesday, 07 January 2020

Paris: Organic restaurants

Walked the Champs Elysees and feel for an easy going, yet high-quality French-style bistro? Continue from the Arc de Triomphe along Avenue Victor Hugo, and you will finally arrive at Place Jean Monnet in the 16th arrondissement. Here you'll find all-day open neo-bistro Jacques, a small friendly place serving breakfast, lunch, dinner and -- on Sundays from 10am to 5pm -- brunch. Apart from a selection of (generous) starters, salads, soups, and burgers there are two daily changing French-style main courses, usually meat and fish.

Jacques

All fruits and vegetables are organic; the meat isn't promised to bear an organic label, but it is definitely of high quality. Unfortunately, of the drinks only the coffee and an easy-going Chardonnay white wine are organic, so although the bar keeps open longer than the kitchen (usually until 2 am) you will not get much organic during the night. The home-made potato chips which were served as a complimentary amuse-gueule may be an exception. The service here is swift, good-humoured and happy to speak English and some phrases of whatever your language is.

L'Epidon

While in all the other restaurants mentioned here tourists are the majority of guests, the audience at L'Epidon, a small fully organic restaurant and wine bar near the metro stop Odeon was clearly local. Their secret (with well-behaving kids): two of the seats are swings.

As in most French restaurants you order a set menu: a starter and main course or main course and dessert or starter, main course and dessert Of course you can also order individually but if you wish to order more than one thing it's more economical to take such a combination. In addition to the menu there's a daily suggestion of the chef -- in my case a hearty stew of calf, green beans and potatoes. Another tip is the main course salad with a sheet of crips brique dough. All in all a perfect place for both, omnivores, vegetarians and vegans, and the best: all drinks are also organic!

La Ferrandaise

If you ready for the classical French Haut cuisine try La Ferrandaise. This is definitely a place vegetarians should avoid, and even omnivores will probably feel to have eaten sufficient meat (and perhaps fish) for the next week after an evening out here. The classical starter-main-course-dessert (at 37 EUR in the evening) is more than filling -- but absolutely tasty and often offers this magical moment when the known ingredients almalgamise into a higher unity, and you wonder how this taste might have been produced. The restaurant is a heavy tourist spot -- English was the predominant language, which is probably due to the fact that the place was mentioned in the Guide Michelin. All vegetables are organic, and there was one really good certified organic read wine on the daily menu. With other wines the restaurant promises that the vineyards work "in the spirit of bio". Lunch menu (l'assiette du midi) comes at 16 EUR.

More to try

Here's a list of (partially) organic restaurants I found in preparation of my stay but did not have time to follow up. If you visit them I'd love to hear about your experience.

Closed

2020-01-07 16:00:00 [Paris, organic, lunch, dinner, restaurant, French, vegan, vegetarian] Link

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Monday, 06 January 2020

Paris: Organic creperies

What would a visit to Paris be without tasting a crêpe? These thin pancakes come in two varieties -- galettes with savoury toppings make a perfect lunch while sweet teeth will prefer a crêpe with sweet toppings. For the real thing head for a crêperie, a specialized small restaurant serving no other food (apart from perhaps a salad), and you should do this for lunch as the better owner-run shops will usually close early in the afternoon.

Crêpe de la Joie

My favourite place is Crêpe de la Joie, a family-friendly 100 percent organic owner-run crêperie near tube stop Censier Daubenton. The buckwheat-based galettes have savoury fillings, often with an egg on top, while the sweet crêpes are made of wheat. All crêpes and galettes (except the one of the day) are dubbed after mythological figures like elves, gnomes and fairies and all of them are vegetarian or even vegan. The friendly owner prepared food for us even though we arrived ten minutes before her closing time. This will surely not be the rule but a little broken French and a friendly smile helped us to get a perfect start for our visit. The shop also sells Hildegard of Bingen food products.

Breizh Cafe

Hip, professional Breizh Cafe within the Marais does not observe the usual French rules for opening hours but serves crepes and galettes all day. The place with its rough wooden interior does not use organic ingredients as a rule, but the flours for both, the galettes and the crepes are always organic.

More to try

The following organic creperies I found in preparation of my stay but did not have time to visit. If you come there I'd love to hear about your experience.

2020-01-06 16:15:00 [Paris, organic, lunch, creperie, restaurant, coffee, French, vegan, vegetarian] Link

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Sunday, 05 January 2020

Paris: Hotels serving (partially) organic breakfast

No carbon and nuclear power, no GMO -- the window front of the more than 20 years old budget hotel Solar Hôtel features Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace and makes very clear the convictions guests are expected to share or at minimum to tolerate. Located in the 14th district near metro station Denfert-Rochereau this welcoming, family-friendly place offers the luxury of eco-certified cleansing agents and solar-powered illumination of its facades, but not necessarily of Paris elegance.

Solar Hotel

If you have a room on the upper floors you may even have a glimpse of the top of the Eiffel tower -- unfortunately the ugly Tour Montparnasse is in the way for a beautiful view. The family rooms are marked for one to three persons, but can be easily used by a family of four as long as two children share a smaller double bed. The hotel's interior emphasizes on longevity and recycling, not necessarily on natural materials (though the towels are made from organic cotton), with headboards and tables made of recycled wood which have been there since 1992, and still do not look shabby. On the other side you may be disappointed to find (re-used) plastic cups at the bathroom and blankets made from 100 percent polyester.

Visitors are encouraged to use the narrow, blue-painted spiral staircase instead of the lift to save electricity and asked to separate their waste into the bins in the entrance area. You may also ask for bicycles.

Solar Hotel

The fully organic French-style breakfast consists of tea or coffee and delicious croissants and baguette with jams and butter. In addition you may help yourself with apple juice, yogurt and breakfast cereals.

There's a sister hotel (more precisely: an annex) dubbed Le Lionceau nearby where organic tea and coffee are promised to be available in the rooms.

Paris luxury

If you are on a romantic vacation or have the budget for ordinary Paris hotel prices there's a number of more luxurious places to spend the night and wake up to a sumptuous organic breakfast. Although I verified the existance of the hotels below I haven't stayed there (yet) and am interested in your experience.

The first ones on my list are the two Green Hotels Paris certified with the European Ecolabel: Hôtel Gavarni and Eiffel Trocadéro in the 16th district which promise 100 percent organic and/or fairly traded breakfast.

Just off the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in the 17th district, boutique Hidden Hotel is painted inside with natural pigments, offers coconut-fibre mattresses, organic toiletries and filtered water, plus organic breakfast.

In the 4th district, near Place des Vosges Hôtel Turenne does not promise 100 percent organic breakfast, but some (perhaps most) of the fresh items, pastries and cold cuts should be organic. It comes at additional 14 euros per person (7 euros when you book your room at the hotel's website) and at no extra cost for children below 12 years. Breakfast on the room is being served without an extra charge.

And finally: As you righteously may expect from a carbon-neutral luxury hotel the Eden Lodge in the 11th arrondissement is reported to offer fully organic breakfast, although the hotel website only promises organic fairtrade coffee, tea and eggs. The place is located near Bastille and the Père Lachaise graveyard.

2020-01-05 09:30:00 [Paris, organic, hotel, accommodation, breakfast, lunch, dinner, bar] Link

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Thursday, 14 November 2019

Mannheim: Cafes, gastro pubs and restaurants

Eating out organic in Mannheim is different than in other cities: First it means vegetarian and vegan-friendly (almost) without exceptions. Second there seem to be no places serving national kitchens -- no German Wirtshaus, no French cuisine, no Turkish fastfood and not even a mock Italian place. And finally organic here means organic for everyone, not just for a wealthy, hip and urban clientele. As a result you may miss cleverly designed cool places as much as refined coffeehouses or classy gourmet restaurants. The good news is that Mannheim's organic restaurants and cafes are extremely affordable.

Inner city

Bio-Bäckerei Bihn

For breakfast (or a snack or coffee during the day) head for Bio-Bäcker Bihn on the ground floor of the Stadthaus housing the city library and other communal facilities and staging the city's part of the Mannheim/Heidelberg International Film Festival. Enter the complex from the north-eastern entry facing Paradeplatz, and you'll find the unpretentious bakery cum self-service cafe at the right hand site. The breakfast options served on work- and Saturdays until noon are sufficient for two not too hungry ones; you can choose from a menu which also boosts three vegan varieties or combine yourself. Coffee or tea on the go is possible, but you should rather bring your own refillable cup (or buy one on the spot) as a one-way paper beaker righteously will be charged with 25 cents. For breakfast, lunch or in between freshly prepared sandwiches are available, too (though no longer in the evening). The coffee comes from an automat, and the rather cheap-looking interior design maintains a low threshold. If you come with a family or friends pay together which will give you a small discount (10% above 20 €, 12% above 30 € and 15 percent of a total above 50€).

Hellers Vegetarisches Restaurant & Café<

100 percent organic wholefood has been served for almost 30 years now at the Hellers self-service restaurant on the Kaiserring ringway opposite the Wasserturm ("water tower") landmark. Take a tray and a plate, fill it from the various stations offering salads, mueslis, soups and warm dishes, proceed to the cash counter and find a place in the winter-garden like dining hall. During the busy lunch hours (usually between noon and 2 pm) there's also a separate station offering a pan-fried dish of the day in small or regular size. It's located next to the entrance and you also have to pay there. The food follows the principles of health food, seasonal and low in spices (the "hot" components I had were rather bland). At the entrance to the sitting area there's a coffee and cake bar also serving ice-cream (1.50 € the scoop). The cake at around 3 € the piece and the coffee drinks compensate for the rather low lunch prices: 4.15 € for a large (that is: what elsewhere would be regular sized) latte and 2.50 € for a small espresso from a coffee dispenser is more than you'd pay in much more pricey cities, and given that the adjacent Alnatura supermarket has a decent Italian pressure coffee machine (though only one chair and table for in-house consumation) better take a coffee next door. The audience at Hellers is quite different than in organic restaurants you may be used to: a lot of elderly people meet here for lunch and coffee. Unfortunately the place doesn't serve breakfast -- the kitchen opens half an hour after the cafe opens and closes one hour (on Sundays and public holidays two hours) before closing time. Also good to know: The soap dispenser in the bathroom contains organic handwash.

If you fancy a better coffee in the Schwetzingerstadt neighbourhood you may step by Eddie's, the city's zero waste grocery store.

Kombüse

For an organic coffee, spritzer (of fruit juice and sparkling water) or wine head for the north-western neighbourhood of Jungbusch. The vegetarian, vegan-friendly gastro pub Kombüse serves Mexican-style fastfood as well as a daily changing soup and main course, on availability (but not reliably) using organic veges. It keeps open until late and may give you an impression of the city's subculture. The place also offers a take away service, but kindly invites guests to bring their own re-usable cups and jars. You will be charged the extra expense if you insist on one-way packaging.

Glückstein

South of the main train station

Interestingly the hippest and most expensive places aren't located in the very city centre but south of the railway tracks. The first one is the Glückstein in Lindenhof south of the railway tracks, a short way from the banks of the river Rhine. This organic vegan restaurant took over from Frankfurt-based raw eatery Rohkosteria. You can choose from the menu which still contains a lot of raw dishes (bowls and salads, burgers, wraps, falafel, vegetable "pasta", smoothies, shots, cakes and cookies), and two warm and filling daily specials at 8 EUR (I had a simple, yet very tasty lentils-based lasagna). Although the place is open in the evenings no alcohol is being served here, and you can also have caffeine-free lupin-based "coffee" drinks. The pleasantly designed interior and the unexcited atmosphere make it an ideal place to stay for a while.

Hedonist

If you have a bicycle take the chance to visit the neighbourhood of Neckarau where you will find two real gems: The first one opened in 2019: Hedonist is another modern, thoroughly designed eatery, friendly, but less homely than Glückstein, rather the type of place where you expect busy business people to have a recreational and healthy lunch break (but no worries, the audience isn't that uniform). You can buy everything to take away, much of it in returnable glass jars with a deposit of 2 EUR -- salads, desserts, falafel and burger sandwiches, pasta, but also German-style pork and fish main courses. On weekdays a set menu consisting of a main course and a dessert is available at lunch time. On the Thursday I was there it was (very filling and quite dry) falafel with some salad, a spoon of pickled beetroot, a small amount of lentil salad, prefectly crisp potato chips and tasty (though too cold) potato salad. While the food is being served guests may collect the generous glass of dessert from the fridge. I had the so-called cheesecake which wasn't actually a cake but a cheese cream with oranges and sponge biscuits. There were also tiramisu and blueberry or raspberry mascarpone cream. The entire vegetarian meal came at 8 EUR, if you choose a fish or meat main course the price tag increases to 11 or even 15 EUR. There's also a rack of selected wines, pickles and condiments to buy home. The place is fuelled by renewable energies.

Bittersüß

Right next to the Hedonist you'll find the second place, a carefully curated and decorated cafe cum wine shop cum organic delicatessen dubbed Bittersüß ("bitter sweet"). Too beautiful to call it an owner-run organic grocery store you can buy all daily necessities here -- fresh fruits and veges, and dairy products as well as organic bodycare. But on top of all this you'll find French sweets, selected cognac and other spirits, an abundance of wine, delicate chocolates, and last but not least the delicious products of the organic ginger bread bakery Friedmann in the same neighbourhood. Between noon and 2pm vegetarian lunch is being served on weekdays -- the daily changing menu you'll find on a hand-written piece of paper at the cashier desk.

North of the Neckar river

Bicycle lovers must not miss out the city's first bike cafe in the Neckarstadt north of the river Neckar. The Café Flamme Rouge (dubbed after the red flag displayed one kilometer before the end of a bike race) was established in 2005 and serves organic bread and rolls from the Lummerland organic bakery with biodynamic vegetarian spreads, partially organic coffee, home-made pesto, pancakes and a lunch dish (the menu changes on Mondays and Thursdays).

Also located in Neckarstadt Ost the Café Pfau has a focus on regional, but unfortunately not organic ingredients. Organic products are used in the kitchen here and there, and the milk is always organic, though neither the (locally roasted) coffee or tea.

More to try

The following place I had on my research list but could not make it there:

No longer organic

The Wohnhunger gifts and things shop does no longer offer organic soups or stews for lunch, and does not use organic milk for their coffee drinks. The coffee itself may occasionally be organic (as they also sell organic beans) but usually isn't.

Closed

Of the following places you may find remnants on the web but be assured: They do no longer exist.

2019-11-14 20:45:01 [Mannheim, organic, breakfast, lunch, coffee, cafe, eatery, vegan, vegetarian, restaurant, bakeries, ice-cream, delicatessen, wine] Link

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Sunday, 08 September 2019

Organic Dessau

The origin and home of the world-famous Bauhaus is both, conveniently located at the Elberadweg bicycle route and conveniently reachable every hour by urban train no. 2 and regional trains from Leipzig main train station. From the train station simply follow the signs to the Bauhaus university, and there, in the self-service Café-Bistro im Bauhaus in the basement, you may order an organic tea or lemonade. Unfortunately this is all you may expect of organic food or snacks on a Saturday afternoon, Sunday or public holiday.

Bauhaus

On weekdays the prospects are brighter, but since I was there on a Sunday, I am unfortunately not able to verify my upfront research which I'm presenting here nevertheless. If you visit any of the places mentioned below (or find more) let me know about your experience.

Breakfast and lunch

The only at least partially organic restaurant is located east of Dessau main train station (i.e. on the opposite side of the tracks than the Bauhaus building and the famous Masters' Houses by Walter Gropius). According to a usually reliable German organic customers' journal the Essbar cafe cum bistro inside the Schwabehaus cultural centre uses organic ingredients to prepare its predominantly vegan and vegetarian food. Unfortunately it serves breakfast and lunch only and is closed on weekends.

Organic provisions

Every second Saturday of a month there's a farmers' market a little further in north-eastern direction, the Bio-Regionalmarkt on Lidice-Platz between the monuments of Dessau-born composer Kurt Weill and playwright Bertolt Brecht. There you should be able to buy organic fruit and veges, simply watch out for the "bio" keyword and organic labels as there are also conventional market boothes.

From Lidiceplatz follow Karlsstraße further east to the Biopur grocery on the premises of the old slaughterhouse of Dessau-Nord. It's a small traditional organic convenience store which offers a good selection of both, organic fresh and dry food as well as bodycare and household items.

There's another small organic grocery on the Bauhaus side of the train station, the Bibernelle ("burnet") which also has a booth at the Bio-Regionalmarkt. It's conveniently located right in the vicinity of the Bauhaus and the Masters' Houses, serves organic coffee, tea, snacks and cakes and has only one disadvantage for the Bauhaus visitor: It's closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

2019-09-08 15:00:00 [Dessau, Rosslau, Bauhaus, Elbe_cycle_route, Elberadweg, organic, snacks, lunch, coffee, supermarkets, grocery] Link

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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.