GästeHaus Klaus Erfort opened in 2003 and by 2008 it had achieved a 3 Michelin Star rating, but 2023 found it downgraded to 2 Stars.  Located in a large house, the elegant dining room had good-sized widely spaced double-white cloth-covered tables with heavily starched napkins, art on the walls, a lovely wood floor, dropped white acoustic ceiling and spot lighting on the tables.  They offered a tasting menu only of 4, 5 or 7 courses and wine pairings were available.  There were several rooms for seating some of which had larger tables and others set to accommodate larger parties.  Service began with a champagne cart and then the snacks started to arrive quickly.  No supplements were offered and we chose to have the “Complete” menu and order our own bottle of wine.  The pacing of the meal was variable with some fairly long pauses in the latter parts of the tasting but portion control was good.  It was a nice meal and the place was pretty but I’m not rushing back.

Set-Up

 

Food

The first round of snacks were all supposed to be one-bites,  They included a quail egg with potato emulsion which was great.  An oyster   A nori chip held artic char.  Goose liver was between two very thin crackers.  Smoked trout was on a polenta chip and mixed with edamame.  There were dozens of other ingredients in each but I couldn’t write fast enough to get them down but all were tasty with the egg being especially so.

 

The Bread service included two hot small loaves one rye and one olive.  Regular sea salt butter was there as well as roasted onion and chile butter.  Both breads had good crisp crusts and dense moist interiors.  The chili butter did have a slight kick to it.

 

A last amuse bouche was tuna tartare with ginger topped with almond milk ‘platter’ in a celery stock sauce.  It was colorful and tasty.

 

Tartare from grass-fed beef was covered with beetroot and smoked trout.  The sauce was buttermilk infused with dill and trout roe.  It came with a side brioche bun.  The brioche was light and tender.  A bit of horseradish was in the tartare that gave it a great spark.

 

Wild mushroom tartlet was topped with truffle and Iberico ham.  The morel mushrooms were diced very fine and had good strong flavor as did the truffle.  Eggplant was mentioned but I’m not sure how it was combined with the sauce of beef and truffle or the thin crisp crust.   A good one though.

 

Salmon from Norway was topped with caviar in a beurre blanc sauce and further topped with a puffed potato.  Some leeks were underneath which still had a nice texture.  The salmon meat was perfect silk and delicious with the rich sauce.

 

Dim Sum of duck and jus were dumplings filled with braised duck.  Around them were leeks and truffles and an exquisite sauce.  The truffle flavor was nicely strong in the dish and perfect with the tender dumplings.

 

Pigeon with pointed cabbage and purple curry jus was a piece of nicely rare pigeon topped with chanterelle mushrooms alongside celery root purée,  cabbage presented in a round the size of a brussel sprout, the pigeon liver and heart and apple in a crisp tube.  The little cabbage was fun with shredded leaves stuffed into one larger one. The organs were both good as was the nicely cooked piece of pigeon.

 

The first dessert was called Tangerine with brioche and Darjeeling.  A tangerine sorbet made from the zest was plated with panna cotta and tea flower ice cream.  The brioche was filled with cream.  Overall this was fruity and light and fine, just not spectacular.

 

Irish Coffee with whiskey and caramel was the second dessert.  Some coffee cream was with dark chocolate and Irish whiskey.  It was the better of the two desserts with more textural interest and better bits of sweetness.

 

Final sweets were another array of goodies.  At the top right were vanilla macarons, then praline of chocolate with cranberry, cream brulee with passion fruit (ring shape), pina colada tart made with coconut and pineapple, a raspberry tart and in the center a hazelnut cream puff.  All were sweet, sticky and fine.   It made me wonder why they don’t give you the moist cloth at the end of the meal?