Dinner at Schwarzwaldstube in Traube Tonbach

There are a handful of Michelin three-star restaurants in Germany, of course, but Schwarzwaldstube enjoyed this accolade of three stars for over 25 years in a row — until it burned down.  

This was certainly no mean feat to undertake for this long a level of culinary excellence worthy of the three stars dished out by pretty unforgiving Michelin restaurant inspectors. Schwarzaldstube did this four whole days a week, as it was open from Wednesday to Saturday, for lunch and dinner.      

 

 

 

 

I find that it’s so lovely to look outside if you’re having lunch, and then equally lovely to look inside at this pretty fantastically decorated restaurant if you’re having dinner.   It has very heavy ornate woodwork, glittering chandeliers and unique details like fancy figurines that somehow look so at home in this magical setting of the Black Forest.  

 

 

The other nice thing about having a meal at Schwarzwaldstube is that you can stay over Traube Tonbach, the hotel that houses it and that has been in the same family for eight generations, since 1789.  

The current owners of Schwarzwaldstube are a really nice and hardworking family over two generations, and we were lucky to meet them in the course of our stay, dining in two of their restaurants.          

 

 

 

 

Traube Tonbach has its original traditional wing and the new and very modern wing.   We chose to stay in the corner suite of the new wing as this is adjacent to the restaurant itself via an enclosed glass corridor. So you can dress up nicely for your meal as Schwarzwaldstube is the kind of restaurant you can dress up for if you so wish, and you need not expose yourself to the elements by walking outside.  

Yes, at Schwarzwaldstube, you can dress up or dress casually, and neither would look terribly out of place — although I personally think you should look very chic if you’re doing casual as many of the other guests are in semi-long dresses and have obviously brought a piece or two from the family jewels.

 

 

Every table was booked on our evening there and we were lucky to get the best table in the house at Schwarzwaldstube. This is the only corner table for four that offers panoramic views of the Black Forest outside along with an equally panoramic view of the intrinsically decorated restaurant inside.        

 

 

When we dined here, Chef Harald Wohlfahrt, who was with the Schwarzwaldstube for over 40 years, was still running the kitchen. How luck we were to taste his three-star cooking. Under his rigid watch, Schwarzwaldstube kept its long-running three-star status.  

He created beautiful classic dishes with a modern twist and a very controlled hand. It was very much traditional cooking with a touch of nouvelle cuisine to me, rather than the experimental blow-me-away dining experience so in vogue in some other top restaurants.  

So guests sat through a four- or five-hour meal here and really felt like they had eaten — and eaten well. It’s not like at some other famous restaurants where you feel you”ve just sat through some kind of food experiment. 

 

 

On the evening we dined, there were three degustation courses at Schwarzwaldstube: a six-course meal, an eight-course meal and a vegetarian course.   There was also an a la carte menu. Happily, in spite of the fancy surroundings, they’re pretty relaxed about the menus.      

 

So you could actually choose one of the degustation courses and then mix-and-match dishes from the other menus or from the a la carte menu. This meant basically ending up with your own custom-made degustation menu exactly as you wanted it.

 

Apart from the usual amuse bouche and appetizers, I had two courses of fish and then lamb as main course, followed by a cheese plate and a chocolate dessert.   Everything was just wonderful, and we had our meal with some local wines the sommelier recommended plus a bottle of Hermitage of quite a rare vintage that we’d specifically brought with us from Asia for the meal.

We’d also started off the evening with champagne on the terrace of our suite, as it was such a fine evening and dear friends had driven up from Baden Baden to join us for dinner.  

Our waitstaff kept us entertained all evening as well with wonderful stories and interesting tidbits about the restaurant, the chef and the meal we were having. None of the typical formality of three-star restaurants here, at this lovely outpost of fine dining in the Black Forest, where I was happily living a #Travelife.