Seven Seas Restaurant is in the Süllberg Hotel on top of a hill by the water. It is a small elegant room with ten large, well spaced tables set with lovely linens and large napkins. Faint music is in the background and the lighting is lowered. The colors are gold and beige with heavy pulled back drapes. The restaurant is named Seven Seas because they are at the harbor where all the ships arrive on their way to Hamburg. The windows around the dining room allow you to watch all the ships and small craft that do pass by. It was a lovely view even after the sun went down. The round room has a center column that is decorated to look like a compass. The room was re-done in 2002 when Chef Karlheinz Hauser took over. They offer 3 tasting menu options with wine pairings available. One tasting is vegetarian. Servers were friendly, but kept their distance, with good English but the pacing of the meal was slow.
We enjoyed a good negroni cocktail with the amuse bouche. The first snack was quiche with crispy onion topped with caviar and gold. It was totally yummy. Nice strong caviar with a delicate crust and savory goodness underneath. It was warm and fun on the tongue.
In an egg shell was llama, cake and caviar. Not sure what else was in it but it had wonderful textures and richness.
There were a number of bread choices from the bread cart including sourdough, cabbage and bacon, olive, ciabatta, parmesan, rye, pretzel, baguette, pumpkin, brioche of bacon and onion and crisps – all with butter. The server made us an assortment of slices and came back later with a basket of warmed assorted rolls. The sourdough had a nice crisp crust and dense interior.
The last snack was a lobster and truffle combination in a dashi broth. Some beef was in the mix and it had excellent flavors.
The tasting started with Goose Liver Umeboshi with plum, shiso and cedar nut. It was different preparations of liver. One end was a roll with something fish based, the middle was a cupcake shaped preparation with smooth interior and crispy top and the right side was smooth liver with a gelée coating. The middle one was my favorite, it was topped with a liver based ice cream, but they were all good. The server brought us a glass of tawny port to go with the course which she poured from a huge bottle.
Cheeks from codfish were confied and plated with celery, elderflower and buckwheat. The cheeks were silky and gelatinous. Fried bits of what seemed like an extruded buckwheat pasta added a nice crispness as did some bits of celery root. A nice plate but milder flavors and strong essences of herbal flavor.
Lobster a la BBQ with corn, leek, and ash from rosemary seemed sprinkled on the plate. The corn was both miniature and larger kernals that had been grilled and they both added some sweetness to the dish along with some bits of fruit. The lobster was cooked perfectly and not dwarfed by the other flavors in the dish.
Loup de Mer was glazed in tomato teriyaki and contained bell pepper, chorizo and goat milk. The fish in this dish was a dense one, a little like sea bass. It was nicely cooked with the pepper being a dominant flavor of the dish, although not at all spicy. One of the peppers was stuffed with more fish and some crispy breads topped it off. Everything blended well together but somehow it felt like there were too many things on the plate. Some leaves of rosemary decorated the plate and they were spiky.
Black feather chicken that had been dry aged 13 days was plated with artichoke, watercress and razor clams. A fried ball on the plate was filled with cheese. The chicken was tender and moist but there were too many sauces and foams on the plate to not become a jumble. Lots of slices of vegetables were nicely cooked and blended well but didn’t seem to add to the overall effect of the dish.
A selection of cheese by Maître Antony was from a cart brought to the table. With your selections were pear jam (right) and plum chutney (left) and a wonderful fruit and nut bread that was moist and flavorful. The cheeses were from cow and sheep and a good selection.
The first dessert was Guanaja 70% with baby pineapple, yuzu and coconut with ice cream. Some cake bits dotted the plate and slices of dried pineapple were standing up. Everything went well together but again it felt like too many things on one plate, but all had nice flavors.
The second dessert was called Golden Delicious and contained thyme, calvados and caramel. Some whipped cream was seasoned with calvados which brought out strong apple flavors. The apple on the plate was a shell lined with foam and filled with chunks of apple in a sweet syrup. Some dried apple rounded out the plate as well a a collection of crumbs.
A dessert trolley finished the meal and contained yummy canelles even though they weren’t properly crisp on the exterior, balls filled with a salted caramel liquid, banana peanut butter cake that was too dense for me and much more. Lots of strong flavors were yours to chose.
A parting gift was a bread/cake topped with icing. It was dry when I opened it a day later.
