The Table Kevin Fehling

Rating: 19
Author: Gault&Millau

Shanghaiallee 15, 20457 Hamburg, Germany

19/20
Exceptional Restaurant

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1 PHOTOS

Chef: Kevin Fehling | Mathias Bath
Cooking: Gastronomic | International
Services: Private Room
Style: Casual | With friends

Gault&Millau's review 2025

There are ideas that don't get old: The long curved table that Kevin Fehling had made especially for his restaurant "The Table" ten years ago is still a crowd-puller – and despite some imitations of his then revolutionary counter concept, the high room with grey curtains and concrete walls in the port of Hamburg is the benchmark when it comes to dining in close contact with the kitchen. On the one hand, this certainly has to do with the fact that host and sommelier David Eitel gives the cool ambience a warmth of heart that is almost automatically transferred to the guests, and on the other hand, that what is prepared directly in front of "The Table" is one of the best you can eat in Germany. There is no lack of tablecloths, fine porcelain or fine cutlery: the atmosphere is so close, almost in the kitchen, that such a pretzel of what is served would simply be out of place. And we have to acknowledge that after many years of ratings just below the top, it now belongs exactly to them. Because what Kevin Fehling and his team (the master himself was not even present during our visit) serve here as a "gateway to the world" – the title of the menu – is composed and implemented with such outrageous precision and so constantly refined from year to year that we can't help but finally put on Fehling's fifth toque. His signature dish, that's how we can probably call it, "Die See", we have eaten here several times; but never before has it tasted so much of its name as it does this season, in which Fehling has once again added a taste dimension to the round dance with a dumpling of oyster foam of highly aesthetically arranged hamachi slices, sea grapes (a type of algae), ebi, sea urchins, caviar and North Sea crabs grilled in the shell with iced horseradish. All the individual ingredients are of a quality that could make any ingredient a star, and each one worked out so clearly in its own right that the opposite of a bouillabaisse is created – and yet in the sum of the individual players it is simple: the sea. Terrific! And courageous to put such a course at the start of the menu after five equally wonderful amuses. However, our fears that this level would be difficult to maintain were in no way confirmed. On the contrary: for example, through the following small shore excursion. Fehling combines his unstuffed, yet highly aromatic goose liver (as a classic slice from the terrine as well as as a glazed mousse) with what is in the harvest calendar during our early summer visit: once with strawberry jelly, then with rhubarb chutney and finally with an asparagus tip formed from the most intensively boiled asparagus cream with roasted hazelnuts. À part with a goose liver ice cream with strawberry-rhubarb ragout in woodruff stock. Formidable, and despite the classic ingredients, not a bit old-fashioned. Fehling then combines his scallop with a thaler of black, fermented bean puree, caressed by a foamed leche de tigre. In addition to water and earth, the air also comes into its own (as long as we generously declare ducks and quails as flying birds). The quail ballotine came to the table in a finely shiny, aromatic poultry and saffron jus, in which it was accompanied by a dollop of hollandaise with argan oil, an eggplant puree jellied in the shape of an olive, boiled kumquat and peperonata and topped by a crispy chicken skin chip. Aromatically and textually not to be surpassed in precisely balanced taste components, but visually a seemingly very simple plate. The challans duck with a wafer-thin, cracking crust and fleur de sel in its own Asian-flavored sauce was accompanied by an excellent passion fruit hollandaise, a pumpkin tartlet, a pointed cabbage roll with the finest bacon cubes and confit from the leg served separately: Each side dish is its own small course, all together as with quail or "See" a harmonious, exciting whole. In addition to small other proofs of its technical excellence such as a fake pepper as a pre-dessert, the patisserie finally inspired us with a deconstructed "Tom Kha Gai" as ice cream in calamansi broth on tamarind cream patties and some small Thai basil leaves plus hippe: a very special, strangely familiar and yet new world of taste. Rarely have we eaten a menu that was as strong in every single component as at the table of Kevin Fehling and his team. The fact that we caught several absolute "perfect matches" with the accompanying wines by David Eitel and had a lot of fun with the professional, relaxed and humorous service made the evening an all-round affair - and Kevin Fehling the five-toque chef.