It turns out that being based in a Bremen shipyard for two months in the winter isn’t quite as bleak as I had feared. I’ve recently taken the train to Berlin & Amsterdam for the purposes of gluttony. Then last week, on a school night, I was easily able to head to Hannover and now Hamburg for some more eating.
100/200 is a 1⭐️ Michelin restaurant in an urban loft style space. Think industrial-chic with a centrepiece open kitchen surrounded by wooden tables for the diners to gawk from. It’s a beautiful space to be fair, but not the easiest to find should you be walking there after dark. I found myself walking along a footpath next to what was essentially a 6 lane motorway at rush hour.
Upon heading up to the restaurant entrance on the third floor, I was greeted by a member of the team offering me a glass of free champagne. It was made clear that it was free and an effort to show the restaurant’s appreciation for the diners who are still venturing out under current circumstances. There has clearly been a significant downturn in reservations with plenty of cancellations as well. I, however, as long as there is breath in my lungs, am eagerly pouncing on these empty seats that are popping up here and there, bagging a seat at Noma and Gaggan during this past week alone. I don’t mean to make light of the situation as it is extremely worrying to many businesses. Many of my friends from Asia have had to cancel European trips through no fault of their own. It’s tricky to justify keeping a reservation if you have to do a compulsory 14 day quarantine when you get home.
Anyway, the glass of champers was swiftly followed by the offer of a squirt of hand sanitizer.
The food was good with a focus on sea food including Arctic char, sea urchin, sturgeon, caviar, pike perch & oysters.
Service between courses was pretty slow. I started timing between a couple of the courses because I was getting a bit bored. At 23 minutes I decided to give it a friendly mention to the waiter. He apologised, agreeing that this wasn’t really acceptable especially with 7 more courses to go, and the speed quickly picked up. There was a weird vibe coming from the kitchen. It seemed like they were a little bit ‘dans la merde’ but because it’s a fully open kitchen, they were hiding this quiet panic with heads down and wide eyes. Like the string quartet aboard the Titanic, purposefully playing on even while the ship was clearly sinking around them. I may be wrong, but I’ve been cooking for 28 years now so I can pick up on that. Anyway, the ship didn’t in-fact sink in the end and all was well. The only other thing that I found pretty annoying was that they had a Pacojet right behind my table that they would regularly use to churn various things (sea urchin ice cream for one) throughout the evening. If you’ve ever worked with one of those machines, you’ll know how loud they are.
Definitely still room for improvement but overall an enjoyable meal.
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