Jacobs Restaurant - Menu

"“Einfachheit auf höchstem Niveau” can be read on the website from Jacobs Restaurant. Ok, we’re getting curious. Jacobs Restaurant is situated inside courteous 5 starred Hotel Louis C. Jacob, where we have kindly been invited to spend the night after our dinner. This might indeed...be a good plan after our multiplicity of courses including a premium pairing wine arrangement. The hotel is located right in Hamburg’s eminent district Blankenese and provides a stunning view on the river Elbe. Chef Thomas Martin has a style based on French haute cuisine, but interprets this style in his own unique way. He mainly uses regional sourced products to process in his dishes. Furthermore, as can be concluded from the mentioned German quote on Jacobs Restaurant’s website, chef Thomas conducts a ‘less is more’-theory, which is in contrast to the theory of lots of other restaurants in this high-end category. However, the interior is everything but simple: looking around you, you will see large velvet chairs placed at the big, round tables, large flowers everywhere and multiple crystal chandeliers hanging on the high, decorated ceiling. Very classy. The overall sense that was invoked by this environment with jazzy music playing in the background, was a feeling of elegance, refinement and serenity. Then, the menu specially selected for our team kicked off with a glass of fresh premier Geoffrey Expression Champagne and a couple of appetizers, such as duck liver mousse with a red port wine jelly and a piece of smoked eel with teriyaki sauce and apple. The chef surprised us with an amuse of hamachi yellow fin mackerel with a cream of bell pepper and dashi sauce with a root of lotus flower on top. What a light and fresh dish with an excellent sugar-acid ratios. The piece of mackerel was outstandingly soft and tasteful. Our first courses were accompanied with a fine German Riesling called ‘Est is wie es ist’, which had an organic and mineral taste at first, including some hints of eggshell, and then obtained a wonderful richness after a few sips. This wine went perfectly with both the dish of white asparagus (an absolute no-nonsense dish) and the dish of Glen Douglas salmon from Scotland with avocado, nori and grapefruit. This last mentioned dish was presented in an marvelous way with the bright colors of the melt-in-the-mouth fresh salmon standing out. The menu continued with a soft cream soup of springtime morels with wild garlic, peas and some pieces of crouton served with an Austrian Szepsy Urbán wine from 2011 which has aged on wood for over two years. A delicious Sauvignon Blanc from 2015 with fruity tones of peach and pineapple formed a great wine-food combination with the following dish of Buffalo ricotta tortellini with saffron, fennel and pine nut. The next course of steamed pike perch with ginger, coriander and lime was quite a large portion for our taste, but the soft flavors of it combined with the elegant taste of the Quarz wine from South Tirol, poured out of a Magnum bottle in view of achieving optimal contact with all acids, formed an absolute mind-blowing combination. A duet of Eifel lamb with mediterranean vegetable tart, goat cheese and eggplant which was served as a main course created a full round taste in our mouths, especially combined with the powerful flavors of the Italian Titolo wine from 2014, again in the form of a Magnum bottle, served with it. As a dessert, we received a plate of rhubarb, greek yoghurt and brioche together with a luxurious looking pink Champagne from Champagne house Cattier. What a perfectly matched sweet tastes and pink colors! As a second dessert, a nice bowl of Araguani chocolate of 72% cacao with sallow thorn and licorice was served to us. The presentation was very delicate. What stood out to us, was the dessert wine served with this last course: a Riesling Auslese from the Pfalz from 2015. Very impressive! Last but in this case certainly not least, a giant trolley with an enormous amount of choices of friandises came rolling out from the kitchen to our table. Based on our reference frame, we can honestly say this would be the most premium selection of friandises and the most classy presentation of them a restaurant has to offer so far. Lots and lots of choices, very diverse and all (yes, we have tried them all) in great quality. After our well-organized dinner, we surely can say that chef Thomas Martin turns out te be a bit modest with regard to Jacobs Restaurant’s slogan “Einfachheit auf höchstem Niveau”. Even though he indeed manages to keep the products as pure as possible, his creative touch in terms of presentation and complexity of combinations within the dishes cannot be considered ‘einfach’ at all. When looking at each dish, there are so much beautiful aspects to admire and this is what makes our impression of Jacobs Restaurant that professional and elegant. The professionalism is evidently also conveyed by the staff, which carries out a strictly monitored and proper impression. At this point, a little less tension in terms of hospitality would have been appreciated by us, but at the same time the strict appearance makes you feel you are in a courteous place where everything’s properly planned out as it should be. Remains for us to say that we advise you to ask for a look in the old wine cellar downstairs, which is centuries old en currently still up and running as an event area. Besides this interesting wine cellar, the excellent food and wines and the proper care that is taken of all guests by the staff, the trolley of friandises on itself already makes Jacobs Restaurant worth the visit."