All You Can EAT Sausage Tuesday - ALL YOU CAN EAT Schnitzel Wednesday  The ‘Das GastHaus’ is a German casual Gastro Pub and drinking experience. The Name being ‘The Guest House’ as a direct translation, commentates the atmosphere that I would like to convey within the restaurant.  The purpose of the cuisine is to introduce to diners that German food is not just schnitzel, bratwurst and sauerkraut washed down by great steins of beer hoisted by hefty maidens while the band plays oom-pa-pa.

Our introduction of German cuisine starts with all of the regions of Germany. The history of German cooking and history of Germany itself match each other in colorfulness and complexity. On the one hand, German food habits vary enormously, depending upon geographical location and social status. For most of Germany’s history, the nation is a loose conglomeration of tribes, fiefdoms, townships, dukedoms, principalities and petty kingdoms, each with its own rigid social structure and individual ways of living. Germany was never united until very recent times – not in fact until 1871, when Otto von Bismarck persuaded or compelled the various German states to accept the King of Prussia as Emperor of all Germany. This interplay of political individualism, social stratification and human diversity is mirrored in the story of German cooking.    

Breaking the cuisine down further, ‘Das GastHaus’ intends to highlight the boundaries of Germany food by region between the ‘Northern Belt’, the ‘Central Belt’ and the ‘Southern Belt’. We will show this through regional breads, the over 100 styles of regional sausages, pork, wild game(middle German), Seafood and fish(Northern German) dishes to the myriad of potato and cabbage dishes offered by each sub-region historically. Please refer to appendix ‘?’ for examples of seasonal menus potentially available.

As an accompaniment to dining out, and as a pastime in itself, beer-drinking is one of Germany’s oldest and best known customs, involving a consumption of some two billion gallons a year. ‘Das GastHaus’ will attempt to distinguish these beers as dark and light. Specifically, German beers come in sweet and bitter, weak and strong, top and bottomed fermented varieties. Among the bottom fermented beers is Lager, which is aged about 6 weeks to clear and mellow it. Export is a stronger beer, stored 2 to 3 months so it will not cloud up during shipment. Another is the bitter Pilsner, originally brewed in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. Pilsner and other light beers are often served with traditional German or Austrian Schnapps. Not the sweet version North Americans are used too. The dark, strong and seductive Bock is brewed in winter and consumed in Spring. Marzenbier, with a color between light and dark, is served at during Oktoberfest. Top fermented beers are cloudy as a result of after fermentation in the bottle or keg. Among them is the weak, frothy Weissbier or white beer. The delicate, champagne like Berliner Weiss is brewed entirely of wheat and customarily is served ‘Mit Schuss’ (with a shot of syrup). Other top fermented beers include the light Altbier (old Beer), derived from a Rhenish favorite called Kolsch, and sweet, dark, malty Malzbier which is very light in alcohol.  

Similarly, wine is also considered a strong accompaniment and must have for a proper German dining experience. Represented will be a strong list of German wines available in Ontario that show that past opinions of German sweet wines being the only ones available. At ‘Das GastHaus’, we will slowly over time populate a wine cellar comprising of wines from the following German Landwein regions ( as they come available through LCBO purchasing routes): Rheingau, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Rheinhessen, Rheinpfalz, Nahe, Franken, 3 regions of Baden, Wurttemberg, Franconia, Ahr, Mittlelrhein, Hessische Bergstrasse. These representing the following classic German wine varietals: Riesling, Muller-Thurgau, Sylvaner, Gewurztraminer, Rulander (Pinot Gris), Wiessburgunder (Pinot Blanc) and Gutedel(Chasselas) for White wine. Portugieser, Spatburgunder (Pinot Noir) and Trollinger for Red wine. These will be ranging from Kabinett, Spatlese, Auslese, Beernauslese, Eiswein and Trockenbeernauslese.