SHGF with plenty of firsts and 12,700 meals

HAMBURG. The 39th season of the Schleswig-Holstein Gourmet Festival (SHGF) drew to a close with two highlights. In early March, two-Michelin-starred chef Dirk Hoberg (Ophelia at the Hotel Riva, Constance) delighted guests at the Waldhaus Reinbek with a finely balanced five-course menu. The culinary journey concluded on 29 March with an extraordinary dessert lunch in the Orangerie at the Maritim Seehotel. Head pastry chef Taro Bünemann drew on his roots, which lie in both Germany and Japan. “I’ve wanted to try Jerusalem artichoke in a dessert for a long time and put a lot of work into combining it with lemon and sage,” explains the 38-year-old. The result is an excellent work of art featuring Jerusalem artichoke as a chip, purée, ice cream and cooked, accompanied by fresh lemon and sage flavours. “I thought we’d only be served sweet courses today, and now I’m experiencing one culinary orgasm after another,” agreed a table of ladies. The berry enthusiast deconstructs familiar dessert concepts into exciting taste experiences featuring sour, sweet, salty, umami and bitter flavours. Taro Bünemann has achieved the same with rhubarb & Tom Khai Gai: “I serve the slightly spicy Japanese chicken soup as ice cream, accompanied by the tartness of the rhubarb and a sour cream to balance it out.” Simply divine!

This year’s SHGF results speak for themselves: media coverage, with over 520 articles, and engagement on social media channels have risen significantly. 22 guest chefs prepared over 12,700 exquisite dishes across the 15 member establishments, treating nearly 2,420 gourmets. A spectacular start was provided by Michelin-starred chef Nathalie Leblond (*Les Deux, Munich) and three-star chef Christoph Rüffer (***Hearlin, Hamburg). Under the motto “Where pleasure makes waves”, they treated the guests, together with the team from the Michelin-starred Orangerie, to an excellent five-course menu on the Baltic Sea. This was followed by culinary statements from ‘Sauce King’ Jens Rittmeyer (Buxtehude), Austrian chef Christoph Parzer (Zum Goldenen Hirschen, Traunsee) and Germany’s No. 1 Marco Müller (***RUTZ, Berlin). Other culinary champions such as Tony Hohlfeld (**Jante, Hanover), the Dane Peter Daniel Madsen (Madklubben, Aarhus), Felix Gabel (*KAI 3, Sylt), Heiko Antoniewicz (Münster), Nils Henkel (Bingen), Dirk Hoberg (**Ophelia, Konstanz) and Marcus Blonkowski (*Genuss Atelier, Dresden) took the interested guests on a journey into their very own culinary worlds. The winner of the TV cooking show ‘The Taste’, Katja Baum (Hamburg), and finalist Helena Gouveia (Zur Flottbeker Schmiede, Hamburg) brought a touch of variety to the StrandGut Resort in St. Peter-Ording with their ‘The Taste’-style menu.

One of the special highlights of the 39th season was the first-ever charity dinner, organised in cooperation with the Sparkassen in Schleswig-Holstein at the Gutsküche (Tangstedt). The event raised 7,500 euros for the Kinderschutzbund Landesverband Schleswig-Holstein e.V. Member chefs Gunnar Hesse (Seeblick, Amrum), Thomas Lemke (*Orangerie, Timmendorfer Strand) and Lasse Knickrehm (*Ahlmanns, Kiel) joined forces with head chef Matthias Gfrörer to create a regional menu, accompanied by live music. Another highlight was the 90th anniversary of the Hotel Cap Polonio (Pinneberg), where head chef Marc Ostermann cooked up a feast together with Matthias Gfrörer (Gutsküche) and his mentor Thomas Martin (Jacobs, Hamburg). New members Eichhorns Hotel & Restaurant (Risum-Lindholm) with two-star guest chef Michael Kempf (Facil, Berlin) and Küstenperle Strandhotel & Spa (Büsum) with top chef Thomas Martin (Jacobs, Hamburg) also celebrated successful debuts. In addition, Markus Pape (*Meisenheimer Hof) made his debut at the Romantik Hotel Waldschlösschen, whilst Germany’s youngest 2-star chef, Luis Hendricks (**Pietsch, Wernigerode), made a guest appearance at the Hotel Der Seehof (Ratzeburg).

“Top chef Alain Ducasse describes the art of cooking as a love story. We are continuing his legacy and aiming to offer our guests a culinary journey through the trendiest kitchens of Germany and Europe as part of the Schleswig-Holstein Gourmet Festival, featuring the fascinating stories of our guest chefs,” said Klaus-Peter Willhöft, Chairman of SHGF e.V. The ‘40 Years of SHGF’ anniversary season kicks off on 30 August at the Romantik Hotel Kieler Kaufmann. Dates and further information will be published on the SHGF website in June: www.gourmetfestival.de