別鬧 歐洲德國也是有美食的

When young lovers dream of a romantic European dinner in a back-street hideaway packed with locals, those back streets tend to be in Paris or Florence, not Düsseldorf or Nuremberg. When thrill-seeking diners book long-distance travel to taste some pathbreaking chef’s strange new inventions, their planes land in places like Barcelona or Copenhagen, not Leipzig or Dresden.

當年輕情侶夢想着在隱匿於偏僻街巷的地方與當地人擠在一起享受一頓浪漫的歐式晚餐時，那些背街深巷往往是在巴黎或佛羅倫薩，而不是杜塞爾多夫或紐倫堡。當尋求刺激的食客爲了一嘗某些具有開拓精神的大廚的新奇菜品而預訂長途機票時，他們飛抵的目的地也是巴塞羅那或哥本哈根之類的地方，而非萊比錫或德累斯頓。

Although the 2013 Michelin Guide paid lavish attention to Germany, awarding 3 stars to 10 restaurants there, neither those restaurants nor their chefs are household names in any country but their own. When Germany flexes its economic muscle, other countries jump to attention. When it shows off its gastronomic power, they shrug.

儘管《2013年米其林指南》(2013 Michelin Guide)對德國青睞有加，將那裏的10家餐廳評爲三星，但一出了德國，那些店鋪和它們的主廚就談不上家喻戶曉了。當德國展現自己的經濟實力時，其他國家都會爭先恐後地予以關注。當它展示自己的美食實力時，別人卻不過是聳聳肩。

Anytime the world seems to have made a secret pact to ignore a subject, curious minds grow even more curious. So off I went last month on a brief but industrious eating tour of Germany. I traveled to three of the cities foreigners are most likely to visit, Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin, making reservations in relatively new restaurants. None of them were especially luxurious or expensive compared with the rarefied dining rooms that are catnip to the Michelin Guide.

無論何時，當全世界似乎達成了一項祕密協定，一起忽視某件事時，那些好奇心重的人就會變得愈發好奇。因此，我上個月去德國進行了一趟短暫卻行程緊湊的美食之旅。我拜訪了外國人最有可能去的三座城市：慕尼黑、法蘭克福和柏林，預訂了較新的餐廳。與《米其林指南》推薦的那些考究的餐廳相比，我選的那些地方都不太豪華，也不太昂貴。

Around the same time, my colleague Frank Bruni was pursuing a similar assignment in China, following similar rules. Unlike me, he stuck to the rules. I bent them to write about a very good meal I had in Frankfurt at Weinsinn, which opened at the end of 2009. My rationale: In its first months, Weinsinn was a wine bar, and didn’t begin to evolve into a restaurant until it hired its current chef, André Rickert, the following year.

大約同一時間，我的同事弗蘭克·布魯尼(Frank Bruni)也在中國進行類似的任務，遵循的規則大致一樣。與我不同的是，他嚴格遵守了規則。我則有所放寬，以便能寫寫在法蘭克福的Weinsinn餐廳享受的一頓美食。這家餐廳2009年底開業。我的理由是：在開業後的頭幾個月，Weinsinn還是一家葡萄酒吧，直到第二年請到了現在的大廚安德烈·里克特(André Rickert)，它纔開始向餐廳轉型。

ALL THE ACTION IS ON THE PLATE

出彩之處盡在餐盤之中

Mr. Rickert has a modernist’s skill set and a modernist’s talent for combining the serious and the playful. Look what he does to ratatouille. Even its fans have to admit that the dish, a lump of stewed vegetables mired in a tar pit of olive oil, is usually no great beauty. Mr. Rickert’s version is a colorful, bright, edible garden, a field of couscous across which he plants black olives, shards of feta, a bright green mound of basil ice cream and warm cherry tomatoes that dissolved into sweet pulp on my tongue like berries in a pie.

在將嚴肅和活潑結合起來這一點上，里克特身懷一套現代技術，也具有現代才華。看看他對蔬菜雜燴的改進吧。即便是喜歡這道菜的人也必須承認，它的賣相通常並不怎麼樣。這道菜是各種燉菜混在一起，埋在黏糊糊的橄欖油裏。出自里克特之手的蔬菜雜燴卻是一座色彩繽紛亮麗的美食園，蒸粗麥粉上點綴着黑橄欖、羊乳酪碎、一個翠綠的羅勒冰激凌球和暖色調的聖女果。在舌尖上，聖女果會融化成甜甜的果肉，猶如餡餅裏的漿果。

The ingredients were strewn all across the plate, but the flavors were firmly rooted. That was the case, too, with a dessert of late-summer damson plums that appeared in three guises: stuffed into a tender dumpling, frozen into sorbet and poached with cinnamon syrup.

食材鋪滿了整個盤子，但卻完全保持了獨特的味道。還有一道甜點也是如此。它用暮夏時節的西洋李子製成，以三種形式呈現：填進細滑的布丁裏、冷凍成果汁雪糕，或是燉肉桂糖漿。

Weinsinn is compact, with only 35 seats in two small dining rooms. So is Mr. Rickert’s menu of three appetizers, three main courses and three desserts. The wine list, on the other hand, goes on for page after page, although there is a simpler way. We asked the sommelier, Jens Gabelmann, to choose for us. He sized up our table at a glance and brought us just the wine we might have asked for if we had been able to put our wishes into words.

Weinsinn餐廳小巧緊湊，兩片面積不大的就餐區僅能容納35名食客。里克特的菜單也同樣精巧，上面只有三道開胃菜、三道主菜和三道甜點。話說回來，酒單卻是翻完一頁又一頁，不過倒是有種簡單點的辦法。我們請侍酒師延斯·加貝爾曼(Jens Gabelmann)幫忙挑選。掃了一眼我們的餐桌後，他拿來的酒正合心意，如果我們能用語言表達出來的話。

THE BEST OF A LONG-AGO EMPIRE

古老帝國的極致菜餚

Across the city is the current headquarters of Mario Lohninger, a chef who has cooked at restaurants formal (he ran the kitchen at the greatly missed Danube, in Manhattan, when it won three stars from The New York Times) and informal (after Danube closed, he founded Silk, a “bed-restaurant” in a Frankfurt nightclub where patrons wore slippers and ate lying down).

城市的另一頭是馬里奧·洛寧格爾(Mario Lohninger)現在的安身立命之所。洛寧格爾大廚在正兒八經的餐廳（在人們深深懷念的曼哈頓多瑙河餐廳[Danube]，他曾掌管廚房，那裏當時贏得了《紐約時報》的三星評價）和輕鬆隨意的地方（多瑙河關張後，他在法蘭克福的一家夜店創立了“牀式”餐吧絲綢[Silk]，那裏的顧客穿着拖鞋，躺着吃東西）都掌過勺。

Three years ago he opened Lohninger in an elbow-shaped, salmon-colored building on the south bank of the Main River. The name is not egotism. This is a Lohninger family production, where Mr. Lohninger’s father works by his side in the kitchen and his mother patrols the dining room with a protective eye. When she spotted a runaway squiggle of spaetzle on my white tablecloth, she clucked softly and scurried off to get a crumb sweeper.

三年前，他在美茵河南岸一棟刷成了淺橙色的弧形大樓裏開設了洛寧格爾餐廳。起這個名字並不是出於自大，而是因爲這是洛寧格爾全家開的店。在這裏，他的父親會在廚房裏和他並肩工作，母親則會帶着關切的眼神巡視就餐區。發現我這一桌的白色桌布上有掉出來的一根雞蛋麪疙瘩時，她輕嘖一聲，然後匆忙拿來了清理碎屑的刷子。

Mr. Lohninger has an instinct for locating the most pleasurable component of a dish and then intensifying it. Schmaltz piled onto brown bread is good, and so Mr. Lohninger’s schmaltz, sweet with puréed pumpkin and crunchy with flakes of crisp chicken skin, must be very, very good. It is. It arrives once you have chosen from the menu, which is split into parts that mirror Mr. Lohninger’s life. One side is called The World. On it, far-flung ingredients turn up like souvenirs from his time abroad. This is where you will find his interpretation of the black cod that he first ate in New York, served in a smoky broth with radish cannelloni.

洛寧格爾有一種鎖定菜餚最令人賞心悅目的部分，然後將其發揚光大的本能。黑麪包抹上厚厚的動物油味道不錯，因此出自洛寧格爾之手的動物油肯定也會非常非常可口。的確如此。裏面既有南瓜泥的香甜，又有小塊炸雞皮帶來的鬆脆。只要客人在菜單上點了這道菜，它立馬就會被端上桌。菜單的劃分體現出了洛寧格爾的生活經歷。單子上有一面名叫世界佳餚(The World)。這裏有來自異國他鄉的食材，彷彿是他在海外生活期間蒐羅的紀念品。你會看到他對黑鱈魚的詮釋。在紐約時，他第一次吃到了這種魚。在這裏，則是放在熱騰騰的高湯裏，佐以小蘿蔔面卷。

A SAFE CHOICE OR A DIZZYING GAMBLE

要麼選擇保守，要麼來一次令人眩暈的賭博

In Munich, I ran into another split-personality menu at a restaurant called Geisels Werneckhof. In this case, the division results from the restaurant’s, and perhaps the city’s, cautious approach to change.

在慕尼黑時，在一家叫做“蓋澤爾家的韋爾內克霍夫”(Geisels Werneckhof)的餐廳裏，我又偶然發現了一份反映出對立個性的菜單。這種分化體現了這家餐廳，乃至這座城市對變革的謹慎態度。

For years the place served traditional food to residents of its snug neighborhood close to the English Garden. Two years ago, it was taken over by the Geisel family, but the landlady made them promise not to touch the leaded-glass windows, the chandeliers that still burn candles or any of the other classic German details in the dining room. She gave them free rein to change the kitchen, though.

很多年裏，這家店都在爲英格蘭花園附近溫馨街區的居民供應傳統食物。兩年前，店面被蓋澤爾家族接手，但女房東讓他們承諾不得改動就餐區的水晶玻璃窗、依然點蠟燭的枝形吊燈，或是其他的經典德式裝飾細節。不過，她允許他們自由改裝廚房。

Tohru Nakamura took her up on it. The chef since April, Mr. Nakamura was born in Munich and learned to cook there before going off to study new techniques at restaurants in Japan and the Netherlands. To get the effects he had learned abroad, he had the kitchen outfitted with induction cooktops, a teppanyaki griddle, liquid nitrogen tanks and a Big Green Egg ceramic grill.

中村徹（Tohru Nakamura，音譯）抓住了房東賦予的這個機會。去年4月開始擔任這家餐廳主廚的中村在慕尼黑出生，並在當地學習烹飪，後來又去了日本和荷蘭的餐廳學習新技巧。爲了發揮在國外學到的廚藝，他爲廚房配備了電磁爐、鐵板燒烤盤、液氮罐和一臺大綠蛋牌(Big Green Egg)陶瓷烤爐。

Now he was ready for the new international style of cooking. The Werneckhof’s regulars weren’t, though — not all of them. For them, Mr. Nakamura devotes one-half of his menu to fairly uncomplicated, if refined, dishes in which a single, familiar ingredient carries the tune. His lean and precise artichoke barigoule, rounded out with a classically thick artichoke velouté and a fat poached oyster, won’t scare anybody except those who fear harmonious flavors and luxurious textures.

就這樣，他爲全新的國際化烹飪方式做好了準備，但韋爾內克霍夫餐廳的常客並不都喜歡這些東西。爲了他們，中村把一半菜單用來呈現那些，說得委婉點，不那麼複雜的菜餚。在這些菜裏，只用一種耳熟能詳的食材來奠定基調。中村清淡卻又恰到好處的洋薊燉菜，配上標準濃度的洋薊白汁和一隻肥美的水煮牡蠣，會讓所有人震驚，除了那些害怕味道協調、口感豐富的人。

The other half of the menu can get pretty far out there, at least by Munich standards. I was deeply impressed by an elaborate composition of tender octopus, ginger-marinated squid, potatoes boiled with onions and bacon, and strips of daikon smoked in the Big Green Egg. Nothing too outrageous about this, but things got complicated in the sauce department: there was a Parmesan cream, a jelly of bone marrow, a miso gel, a garlicky aioli, a drizzle of browned butter, and a rustic vinaigrette with capers and anchovies. When Mr. Nakamura later detailed the dish for me, I felt as dizzy as if I had stepped out onto an airplane wing. At the time, though, I mostly noticed that every last thing on the plate was delicious.

菜單的另一半則列着大相徑庭的菜餚，至少以慕尼黑的標準來看是這樣。一道由細嫩的章魚肉、經過薑汁浸泡的魷魚、與燻肉和洋蔥一起煮的土豆，以及大綠蛋裏烤制的蘿蔔條做成的精緻菜餚讓我印象深刻。這些都還不太令人吃驚，但到了調味汁部分，就變得複雜起來：有帕爾馬乳酪、骨髓凍、膠狀味增、蒜泥蛋黃醬、些許焦化黃油，以及帶有刺山柑和鳳尾魚的油醋汁。當中村後來向我詳細介紹這道菜時，我感到一陣眩暈，像是擡腳踩上了機翼一樣。不過當時，我只是覺得，盤子裏的每樣東西都是美味。

KEEPING THE JOY ON THE MENU

讓菜單散發出愉悅

The half-old, half-new menu at Geisels Werneckhof reminded me of something Justin Leone, an American sommelier working at a very good Munich restaurant called Tantris, had written to me in an e-mail. Compared with fad-chasing Americans, he wrote, Bavarians have “a tremendous appreciation for consistency and longevity.” To see a city that was crazy for a taste of the new, he advised me to hit Berlin.

蓋澤爾家的韋爾內克霍夫餐廳一半傳統、一半創新的菜單讓我想起了美國侍酒師賈斯廷·萊昂內(Justin Leone)在給我的一封電子郵件中寫到的內容。他在一家非常棒的慕尼黑餐廳工作，名叫Tantris。郵件中寫道，相比於追逐時髦的美國人，巴伐利亞人“極爲崇尚協調統一和源遠流長”。如果想看看爲嘗新而瘋狂的城市，他建議我去柏林。

Perhaps the most dynamic chef in Berlin is Tim Raue, who as a teenager ran with a street gang in the Kreuzberg neighborhood and then found his home in restaurant kitchens. By 2010, he had opened a place of his own around the corner from Checkpoint Charlie, Restaurant Tim Raue, but he wanted it to be different from the formal, classical, French-influenced dining rooms that he believed were draining the joy out of German fine dining.

蒂姆·勞厄(Tim Raue)或許是柏林最有活力的廚師。十幾歲時，他和街頭幫派混跡於克羅伊茨貝格一帶。後來，他在餐廳後廚找到了自己的天地。2010年，他在查理檢查哨附近的街角開了屬於自己的蒂姆·勞厄餐廳(Restaurant Tim Raue)。但他希望這家店和那些受法國影響的古典正式餐廳有所不同，因爲他覺得那些地方抽走了德式美食的樂趣。

“I wanted to have a restaurant in Germany where people could be happy,” he said. His menu was built around bright, exciting flavors from China, Vietnam and Thailand. To let customers know that fun was not forbidden, he dressed his dining room staff in Chuck Taylor high-tops. The sneakers put a spring in their steps, although when my server pulled on a single white glove to set down clean silverware, I couldn’t stop humming “Thriller.”

“我希望在德國開一家讓人們覺得開心的餐廳，”他說。他的菜單以中國、越南和泰國的菜式爲基礎，顏色鮮亮、令人興奮。爲了讓客人們知道店裏推崇玩樂，他讓就餐區員工穿Chuck Taylor高幫帆布鞋。這種運動鞋會讓他們走路時好似腳踩彈簧，當我的侍應生拿出一隻白手套，開始擺放乾淨的銀質餐具時，我忍不住哼起了《顫慄》(Thriller)。

And I was almost ready to moonwalk when I tasted the restaurant’s Chinese-style suckling pig. A fold of pork belly had been red-cooked and then deep-fried, giving it a gentle sweetness under a terrifically crunchy layer of skin. I couldn’t make up my mind whether I liked it better dipped in the little pile of salt and Sichuan peppercorns, or dredged in a reduction made from pigs’ feet and dried tangerine peel.

吃到這裏的中式乳豬時，我都快要跳太空步了。因爲相繼經過紅燒和充分油炸，五花肉那一層肉皮酥脆可口，底下的肉則稍稍有些甜味。我拿不定主意，自己到底是更喜歡蘸着那一小碟椒鹽吃呢，還是撒上豬蹄和陳皮做成的佐料？

WHAT THEY'LL DO FOR GOOD PASTRAMI

爲了上乘的五香薰牛肉，他們一往無前

Like Brooklyn or Portland, Ore., Berlin is now full of cooks trying to make a living out of barbecue, bao and other populist staples. For sheer determination and stubbornness, I doubt many of them can match Paul Mogg and Oskar Melzer, who opened a New York-style deli because they couldn’t find an easier way to get a good pastrami sandwich.

就像布魯克林或俄勒岡州的波特蘭一樣，柏林現在到處都是想借烤肉和包子一類的平民主食謀生的廚師。就堅定的決心和執着而言，我懷疑他們中的許多人都比不上保羅·莫格(Paul Mogg)和奧斯卡·梅爾策(Oskar Melzer)。他們兩人開了一家紐約風格的熟食店，原因是，他們找不到吃到上乘五香薰牛肉三明治的更簡便的辦法。

They sampled pastrami imports, hoping for greatness. “These packages were showing up with the Statue of Liberty on the package, and the pastrami was so dry and sweet it was like a candy cane,” said Mogg & Melzer’s chef, Joey Passarella. A native of Nyack, N.Y., Mr. Passarella met his partners while cooking in Berlin restaurants. After some arm-twisting, he agreed to take on the task of brining briskets in the restaurant’s basement and smoking them in the backyard.

他們對進口的五香薰牛肉進行了品嚐，希望找到超凡脫俗的口味。“它們的包裝上有自由女神像，裏面的燻肉卻非常幹，非常甜，像甘蔗似的，”莫格與梅爾策餐廳(Mogg & Melzer)的大廚喬伊·帕薩雷拉(Joey Passarella)說。他是土生土長的紐約州奈阿克人，在柏林當廚師時，遇到了現在的合作伙伴。經過一番討價還價，他同意承擔起在餐廳地下室醃製牛胸肉並在後院進行熏製的工作。

His pastrami is quietly smoky, noticeably peppery, not too salty, flagrantly pink. Sliced and layered on excellent, fresh, un-spongy rye modeled on the bread from Schwartz’s deli in Montreal and spread with a close approximation of brown deli mustard from Düsseldorf, it adds up to a pastrami on rye that only a handful of delis in New York can match.

他製成的五香薰牛肉稍稍有些煙燻味，胡椒味很明顯，鹹味不太重，呈正宗的粉色。薰好的牛肉被切成片，一層一層地放在如同蒙特利爾施瓦茨熟食店(Schwartz’s)的上好新鮮緊實黑麥麪包上，並被抹上了類似於杜塞爾多夫棕色熟食芥末的醬料。於是，便有了這道只有紐約少數幾家熟食店可以與之媲美的薰牛肉黑麥麪包三明治。

Mogg & Melzer stretches a short distance outside the deli genre. There is a brûléed chicken liver mousse, for instance, and a compact but thoughtful wine list. If you come in the morning, you can ask your server for lox dusted with fresh horseradish and chives on a chewy, unsweetened hand-rolled bagel, which you can’t do at Katz’s in Manhattan, and watch the cooks working behind glass shelves lined with house-made beet pickles bob their heads to rap while steam rises from superbly light and jiggly cheesecakes resting on the window ledge.

莫格與梅爾策餐廳稍稍擴展了熟食店的範疇。比如，店裏有一種焗雞肝慕斯，還有一張簡短卻細心周到的酒單。如果上午來，你可以向服務員點撒有新鮮西洋山葵和香蔥的薰鮭魚，配上耐嚼的原味手卷百吉餅。在曼哈頓的卡茨店(Katz’s)，這可是辦不到的。你還能看到，在放着一排自制醃甜菜的玻璃隔板後工作的廚師閒聊時頻頻點頭，窗臺上超級鬆軟而誘人的奶酪蛋糕正冒着氣。

That Jewish food is now cooked and eaten there certainly resonates in many directions. And I would like the building’s story to have a happy ending. But I can’t honestly write that the pastrami and bagels and cheesecake have any meaning that is deeper than their own quality. They are simply very good.

在那裏，人們會烹製和享用猶太食物，這一點肯定會帶來諸多反響。我希望這家店的故事有一個完美的結局。但我實在沒法說，五香薰牛肉、百吉餅和奶酪蛋糕有什麼超出它們品質的意義。它們就是真的非常好吃。