Zum Laub

I often have the opportunity to sample unique cuisines and try interesting restaurants during my travels. Some are clearly not all that exciting, others are a special culinary treat. Such as Oklahoma Joes in Olathe, KS; Nada a new age Mexican restaurant in Cincinnati, Ninety Acres in Peapack-Gladstone, NJ, etc. Others are just unique atmospheres and experiences. I think especially of Cochon in New Orleans, where despite the food being great, the whole experience of stumbling on this eatery and the mystique of the mystery was incredible.

This last week during my 10 days in Europe I had an atmospheric treat, mostly from the history that of the restaurant that sat around the room. In Denmark I ate at the company cantina as part of the Academy, which actually is a delightful experience. We are consistently served a quality menu with a distinctive Scandinavian touch, with the right amount of reinvention when food showed up again the next day.

But during my several days in Germany I took the opportunity to catch up on solid German fair - comfort food for me. There was wurst, roasted chicken, wiener Schnitzel and kaese spaetzle, a mediocre pork joint (Schweine Haxe), and so on. But I had a colleague join me at Zum Laub (to Fallen Leaves) a small restaurant and inn in Pfinztal where the office is. What was incredible was the history at your feet, just like fallen leaves piled around.

The place was built and opened in 1558 and continuously run since then. If that wasn't amazing enough, it has been in the Becker family since then. In18 generations they have run this typically German home for guests with typical Schwaebisch food. In 1808 and again 1812-13 Napoleon visited and stayed in the hotel. Famous German poets and Karlsruhe students visited this coach house often. It operated as a Hafertankstelle - an oats filling station - for coaches; think of a gas station for horses. During World War 2 part of the barn burned down from a nearby air attack.

The food was all right - I had kaese spaetzle (cheese egg pasta with onions) and wurst salat (like a bologna salad - quite good actually). But the history sort ofseeped in to your bones. With great conversation with my good friend Ralf, and walls that have seen a tremendous amount of important European history (I can just imagine seeing the local university student gatherings during the peasant revolts inciting each other with rhetoric over local beer), I enjoyed a unique experience that clearly cannot be found in the US.

HRP