Hoffmann Gastronomie & Catering: Fill & Download for Free

Here we go again. How much money a movie makes has nothing to do with how good it is. If your question was about food, and not movies, you might as well have asked; If Mcdonalds makes so much money how come they haven’t left any influence on Fine art, Michelin gastronomy?It’s the movies that contains a high degree of artistic value that tends to inspire later filmmakers, not how much money it made.And as far as Avatar goes, there is nothing in it to inspire or progress the movie as an art-form. And that puts it in the same category of other money makers with no artistic value; porn movies, for instance.

Crazy is not enough. That's the situation of Michelin-level restaurants in Germany – according to the excellent article "Verrückt ist nicht genug" by Carsten Holm in the German news weekly DER SPIEGEL 35/2014 (25 August 2014 issue). The following is my translation, with a little help by Google Translate for the rough draft, dict.leo.org for the expressions and linguee.com for the terminology."Crazy Is Not Enough"Gastronomy The level of Germany's top chefs is as high as ever – but many are struggling to survive financially. Some bosses take drugs, others give up.Beams of joy propagate over Cornelia Poletto's face when she talks about "back then" and the most beautiful moments in her life as a celebrity chef. In her left hand is a spiny sea urchin, in her right hand, a nail clipper, a couple of quick cuts into the tissue. "Then, a miracle of nature appears," says Poletto, "a small sea-water pool with eight reddish tongues."Carefully plucking with the tweezers, and the tongues are freed. Accompanied by five rolled spaghetti and a reduced decoction of sea water, fish stock and olive oil, this is "Mediterranean cuisine at its best," says Poletto. To break even, she would have to charge 30 euros for this delicacy. "I could offer that in my starred restaurant. In my gastronomia, this is won't work."For ten years, she headed her restaurant Poletto in Hamburg which was crowned by the restaurant testers of the Guide Michelin with one star; she is known by millions from her television appearances. However, there never was any real money to be made from it. In 2010, she closed the gourmet temple and opened a gastronomia in Hamburg-Eppendorf, an Italian-style deli/restaurant.Cornelia Poletto is not embarrassed to disclose the reasons for her descent from Olympus. She knows that most of the 268 chefs in Germany who earned one, two or three stars are fighting for survival – and some give up. "In the beginning, I did not know how to pay the suppliers," says Poletto. Her father, a professor of gynecology, helped with a cash injection of more than 100,000 euros.In 2002, the Michelin star brought Poletto an increase in turnover of 30 percent. But while she paid her deputy, the sous-chef, a gross annual salary of 40,000 euros, "I was often very far from there," says the chef, "despite 300 days per year of struggling for survival from seven a.m. until one a.m." High cost of supplies, high labor costs, high rent. To outsiders, it is difficult to understand "how a restaurant that demands 150 euros for a five-course meal and is often fully booked still remains in the red."The situation of the German high-class gastronomy is paradoxical: never did the stove maestros cook at such a high level as today, never have there been so many star-cald chefs – but never before did so many fear for their livelihood. When chefs look at their balance sheets, they lose their appetite. People save, especially on wine, the most important revenue driver. Whoever cannot compensate losses with the proceeds from a hotel is threatened.The restaurants do not disclose their balance sheets – but tricks to maximize profits that are widespread in the restaurant trade "are not possible for us," claims one chef. You cannot "sell pangasius as turbot". The fraudulent Schwarzwald subtlety of issueing so-called intermediate bill that are settled, but do not appear in the daily turnover, is "not possible at this level."The restaurant chefs suffer from an almost insurmountable dilemma: unlike their colleagues in the US, the UK and France, they often do not even earn what they spent on expensive ingredients. Breton turbot costs 50 euros per kilogram, caviar 1,000 and truffles up to 3,000 euros. For a cheese wheel by the Alsatian affineur Bernard Antony, cooks have to lay out up to 50 euros per kilo.But it does not pay off. A large tasting menu with seven to nine courses will cost 165 to 210 euros in Germany. In France, customers spend 60 to 80 percent more without any complaints."For gourmets, Germany is a cheap country," says Hermann Bareiss, hotelier and senior chef of one of the most prestigious resorts in Baiersbronn, Baden-Württemberg. Chef Claus-Peter Lumpp cooked the Bareiss up to three-star fame. "We offer our eight-course meal for 210 euros," says Bareiss, "it should cost almost twice as much."But who would let his palate be tickled for 400 euros, wines extra? German are regarded as too stingy. According to a top chef, "the French drive up with rust buckets and indulge themselves. Big meals, good wine, happy mood. The Germans park their S-Class Mercedes, order the least expensive wine and the smallest menu and eat it while whispering".It is not long ago that, all over the country, it smelled like in Granny's kitchen: roast pork with dumplings and smoked pork chop with sauerkraut. Quails as a delicacy were unknown, coq au vin was considered avant-garde. On their wooden boards, Germans chopped parsley and chives; they only warmed up gradually to basil and tarragon.Eckart Witzigmann, celebrated as chef of the century, sparked a revolution at the fireplaces of the republic in 1979. His Aubergine in Munich became the first German restaurant with three stars; with his students, he created the German cuisine wonder: Witzigmann sent for crème fraîche from France, then it conquered everyday cooking. On the balconies, rosemary for chicken and sage for the noodles grew – new recipes and ingredients spread throughout the country.By now, the French haute cuisine is no longer the benchmark of all delights. The young guns get inspired by the ways of Asian cooking. Kevin Fehling, 37, three-star chef in Travemünde's La Belle Epoque, combines smoked pork chop with oyster, frozen mustard and cabbage on his menu. However, the restaurants hardly benefit economically from all the creativity of their chefs.Alexander Dressel, head of the association Jeunes Restaurateurs d'Europe in Germany and of the Potsdam star restaurant Friedrich Wilhelm says that of the 71 restaurants of the cooking-elite club, "more than half" would still generate "just a black zero".In February, Michael Hoffmann dropped everything. For 15 years, he led the Berlin one-star restaurant Margaux at the Brandenburg Gate. He came up with ideas that, initially, would drive hobby chefs crazy: curly kale with strawberries, for example. Not with smoked pork chop, cooked sausage or pork belly. With strawberries.Hoffmann finely plucks the cabbage and sautés it briefly, before dried and pulverized white and red strawberries join it. A creamy decoction of dried porcini and crumbled pecorino complete the dish. "An aromatic dream," says Hoffmann.The financial situation, though, was sometimes a nightmare. Hoffmann had planned for a gross annual salary of 85,000 euros, but, as he tells it, there were months where he could not pay himself anything – too variable was the utilization. 14 to 16 hours of work per day, monthly fixed charges of 65,000 euros, not counting the cost of goods, almost 20,000 euros for rent alone – and at the end of the month, no money was left.And yet, Hoffmann had advanced to pope of the vegetable kitchen, he dared to offer a vegetarian menu for 140 euros. The trade magazine Feinschmecker crowned him Chef of the Year in 2010. But the Margaux, like all restaurants in its class, was affected by the new compliance policies of many companies: saving on travel expenses. Gone are the times when cheerful management boards asked for an '82 Château Margaux for 800 euros. Gorging oneself on company expenses now has a rancid flavor; that is nice for shareholders, but devastating for the chefs."I was about to lose the joy for my wonderful profession," says star chef Hoffmann, "I have quit because I did not want to end up like colleagues who cling to the bottle."Many can not withstand the pressure. But how they reduce stress is subject to a kind of kitchen omertà. Eyewitnesses report that one of the best chefs "smokes a joint first thing in the morning and then carries on with coffee and bubbly." Another highly decorated one is not embarrassed "to get drunk with the guests at their table after the last course."The top chefs have achieved a lot, though. The inspectors of the Michelin restaurant guide, the supreme court of the industry, have documented the rise of the philistine republic of Germany to a culinary promised land. In 1990, the testers only awarded one star 187 times, this year, there were 220. A mere 14 kitchens had two stars in 1990, today there are 37. The number of three-star restaurants shot up from three to eleven since then.When a gourmet restaurant is awarded three stars, it must be "worth a trip" according to Michelin. As the only German chef, Harald Wohlfahrt has held three stars for 22 years, because he performs world-class magic in the Schwarzwaldstube in Baden-Württemberg's Baiersbronn day after day. Gourmets come from around the globe, also because he is among the handful of chefs in Europe that can serve the French traditional dish Lièvre à la Royale, royal rabbit with foie-gras stuffing.For a total of 36 hours, the chefs lean over the herbivore, fillet the meat and, out of the shoulder, prepare a farce, into which they incorporate truffles. Then the filling is rolled into the saddle of the hare and cooked at 86 degrees Celsius for twelve hours. Not 82 degrees, not 90. Exactly 86 degrees.And yet: one of the best restaurants in the world could "not survive here in Baiersbronn" without the good utilization rate of the luxury hotel Traube Tonbach, says Heiner Finkbeiner, owner of the hotel and of the Schwarzwaldstube. It is always booked in the evenings, three months in advance for Fridays and Saturdays. The "slight profit" arises because Finkbeiner demans "only a virtual lease" from his super chef.Elsewhere, the situation is not better. It has become widely known that the avant-gardist Thomas Bühner ("Crazy alone is not enough") dares to put strongly reduced Coca-Cola in ultra-thin jelly strips onto foie gras, ever since his cuisine at the La Vie received its third star in 2011. Since then, guests from Brazil reserve in Osnabrück.Bühner and his boss, former RWE CEO Jürgen Großmann, remain silent when it comes to numbers. But they do not deny that billionaire Großmann, who owns the 201-years-old restaurant building in the heart of Osnabrück, compensates a loss of several hundred thousand euros every year. Großmann is a gourmet, he says it's always been his "dream and stated aim" to ascend "to the culinary three-star Olympus" with his house.It is depressing: on their visits, gourmets from all over the world dine for an average of 250 euros per person – but that's not sufficient for adequate proceeds.Kitchen pioneer Witzigmann sees fine dining on the path to a two-tiered society: "There is the crème de la crème, the three-star restaurants that may survive on the coat-tails of a hotel through the offsetting of revenues. And then, there is the broad midrange with a tendency towards their second or third star." Those houses, says Witzigmann, have invested a lot into a prime brigade of chefs and would now get "into financial difficulties, because there aren't enough guests coming."The crisis has sparked a debate on the future of the profession. Should there be four or eight different free starters, the amuse-bouches?Tim Raue, two-star chef with a passion for Asian-inspired cuisine, carries a pot to one of the tables in his Berlin restaurant. He puts on a small show: clouds of steam moving into one another like a hurricane; on the bottom, a fillet of turbot awaits to be consumed. "A simple trick," says Raue, amused at himself, "pour hot water over dry ice. A bit of entertainment must be a part of it."Raue takes his inspirations from all over the world, mostly from New York: "many trends are created there". In Manhattan, he has observed that the three-star restaurant Le Bernardin fills 27 tables two to three times per night and is fully booked for weeks in advance. That means: two to three times as much turnover as in Germany.At home in Germany, Raue says, "a table is regarded as one's property from 7 to 11 p.m." Raue has tried something different in his offshoot La Soupe Populaire. There, the tables are allocated up to three times per night – and are always fully booked.Good cooks often work 12 to 16 hours a day. As employees, three-star holders can demand a gross annual salary between 130,000 to 150,000 euros. Sous-chefs, themselves classy sizzlers almost without exception who can replace the boss on his level, earn much less. In two-star or three-star establishments, they typically declare a gross income of 70,000 to 90,000 euros. One-star restaurants pay them an annual salary of 30,000 to 40,000 euros gross – as much as a roofer's journeyman.Those who have a good name may supplement their income with advertising or show cooking, that yields 10,000 to 25,000 euros plus expenses per appearance. Those who leave the star stress behind fare even better. Eight episodes for private TV channels are sometimes rewarded with 300,000 euros.The Hamburg TV star and restaurant chef Tim Mälzer thus secures his livelihood – without any star.Through cookbooks that excel with simple do-it-yourself recipes, Mälzer reached a circulation of about two million copies; with his Bullerei, a popular restaurant with cuisine to suit all budgets and tastes, he earns a taxable annual income of around 200,000 euros – with 70 to 80 hours a week.Others become multi-entrepreneurs. Stefan Hermann, head of the Bean & Beluga in Dresden donned with one star, generates a loss of approximately 100,000 euros with his gourmet restaurant, but he makes up for it with cross-subsidization – for a long time, that was as unimaginable as the thought that literary writer Heinrich Böll would earn a bit on the side with comic books.The star chef heads the restaurants in Dresden's Semperoper and Schauspielhaus, he runs a deli, a cooking school and a catering company. In 2009, he was "belittled by his peers and got lots of funny looks" when he opened a beer garden on the Konzertplatz. His sales drivers include a mulled-wine stand at the Christmas market.Hermann is not ashamed to sizzle sausages in the beer garden. He employs about 70 people and has a turnover of nearly four million euros per year. According to him, he finished 2012 with a net gain of 65,000 euros. "I do not have to be rich," he says, "I'm satisfied."Those are just a few colleagues. The Saarbrücken three-star chef Klaus Erfort is pleased with a sales growth of 30 percent at mid-year. The man who came up with the idea to wrap pinapple around foie gras is aware of his "privileged location". Three out of ten guests come from France or Belgium, they usually enjoy the large menu for 185 euros.The Berlin chef Tim Raue is satisfied. His two-star restaurant generates a downright astronomically high margin of around ten percent – perhaps because he is as advanced as scarcely any other.Erfort and Raue implement what veteran Witzigmann demands: the reduction of inhibitions. Guests no longer want "to be served by stooped waiters in black suits". Gone are the times when the clatter of cutlery was the loudest sound permitted: "One wants to have fun while eating, not listen to Vivaldi's Four Seasons." Chefs who are expecting guests in a suit "will soon sit there alone."Erfort put a large, round wooden table into one of his rooms and had the walls there hung with dark-gray eel skin. "We were a little surprised that our more conservative guests loved it," says Erfort. And it took a year for his maître and sommelier Jérôme Pourchère to be willing to work without a tie. Raue has the courage to hang a huge painting with garbage bags in his restaurant. His service staff are loosely dressed and wear sneakers. "The other day," says Raue proudly, "there was a guest ina tailcoat in one corner and a punk in the other."It seems there will be something happening with Germany's top restaurants. But even those who have moved on from the haute cuisine circus cannot let go of their past. Once a month, Cornelia Poletto brings back the time as a celebrity chef and cooks for 36 guests in her bistro "as it was back then."The menu includes crunchy tartare of charr with saffron-and-fennel vinaigrette, duck ravioli with black truffle and sea bass in venus-clam broth."It's not like I unlearned it," says Cornelia Poletto.Original German article © DER SPIEGEL 35/2014