GenussWerkstatt

Rating: 14
Author: Gault&Millau

Flugplatzstraße 44, 55126 Mainz, Germany

14/20
Chef's Restaurant

BOOK

1 PHOTOS

Chef: Helge Straub-Schilling
Cooking: European | French | German | Local | Vegetarian
Services: Access for people with disabilities | Accommodation | Electric charging station | Private Parking
Style: Casual | With friends

Gault&Millau's review 2025

The truism, which often sounds threatening to children's ears, that you eat what is on the table, is the concept of the Genusswerkstatt in the Mainz Business Hotel Atrium in a relaxed version for adults. No choice possible, a menu is served in ten sufficiently portioned courses at one price. No more and no less. No need to panic, because, as it is actually written on the menu, chef Helge Straub-Schilling and his team have "developed a menu in which the products come first." That sounds reassuring, because we would have expected them there too. The culinary round dance begins as a Mainz snack with hand cheese salad, Spundekäs, onion tart, a Handkäs espuma and, of course, baker Vetter's sourdough bread. Well-made classics from the standard repertoire of the Mainz wine bars. Then comes the pickled char in a spicy smoked vinaigrette. With pickled kohlrabi refined with dill oil, an aromatically harmonious arrangement. On the other hand, in the case of boiled beef, served in the form of a salad and watered with wild mushroom stock, the accompanying celery takes over the primary aroma. The gentle organic egg yolk also finds it difficult to find its box place between the taste counterpoints of an intense green sauce cream, fermented cauliflower and nutty beechnuts. We praise the hearty ragout of duck leg, served with potato espuma, chives and a hint of garlic. Then a duck breast spread with honey varnish, accompanied by the parsley root puree, the small dumpling and the deep jus cooked from the carcasses. The attractively arranged pâtisserie offers caramel chocolate cream, hazelnut ice cream, pear ragout and crunches of chocolate and honey.