Tim Raue Restaurant

Tim Raue Review at-a-glance

Awards: 2 Michelin star, 19.5 Gault Millau

+The chef cooks the types of food he is interested in. Thankfully, this is also the kind of food and flavors you want to eat.

-Bold flavors were not always balanced out. Some dishes were boring.

Rating: 91/100

Verdict: Despite being classically trained, Raue’s fascination with Asian flavors dominates his cooking. While Raue was one of the first to adopt this style of fusion cooking at the Michelin level, it is commonplace these days to find Michelin chefs across Germany playing with Asian influenced ingredients and flavors - Victors Fine Dining, Yunico, LA Jordan, and The Table to name a few. Maybe because of this I did not find Raue’s cooking to be as shocking or provocative as the chefs table episode suggests - mostly it was very solid with some interesting flavors.

Price I paid: €136 for a 4-course lunch menu with both optional courses

Value: 14/20

Tim Raue Restaurant Background

Thanks to his episode on Chef’s table, Tim Raue is arguably the most internationally known chef in Germany. His story is captured in detail on the show so rather than goes through his background I will recommend you give it a watch when you have a chance. Accolade-wise, while the ultimate third Michelin star has continued to elude Raue he is quite adored by all of the other guides including consistently placing on the Worlds 50 Best and earning the “perfect” 19.5 from Gault Millau (the only non-three star in Germany to earn this honor).

The atmosphere at Restaurant Tim Raue could best be described as upscale casual. There are white tablecloths but they don’t cover the entire table and the service is accommodating but relaxed (and wearing sneakers to boot). Tables are well spaced and there is quite a bit of natural light coming through the windows, the overall effect being a modern dining room.

We visited for lunch where they offer 8 dishes split into 4 courses and the restaurant offers a 4-course menu for €88 which could go all the way up to 8-courses for €148. We each got 4-course menus but picked different dishes for each course so we got to cover the entire menu. We also added on both of Raue’s signatures, Wasabi Langoustine and his interpretation of Peking Duck, which were available for a €24 / surcharge. If you go for dinner the restaurant offers a 6-course menu for €188 and an even longer 8-course menu for €218.

What we ate at Tim Raue

Even by Michelin standards, the set of nibbles to start the meal was extensive - I am sure I am missing a few but the bites included sweet potato with kimchi puree, Sichuan style pork belly, radish with black currant, marshmallow with shrub, white asparagus soup, grapefruit segments, and some curried pecans. While serving all of these snacks at once may make it difficult to fully appreciate each bite, both my wife and I really enjoyed working our way through them as we perused the menu. The favorite was the pork belly with the meat being very tender and having the right amount of spice.

The first proper course was a bit of an inauspicious start consisting of pointed cabbage, green sancho berries & purslane. My notes say tasted fine but boring so while I can’t really remember this dish I am not sure that is a big loss. Better was the other starter, dim sum “har gau” with crustacean & bamboo. I am not qualified to judge dim sum but for me, this was an excellent dish. The har gau had good texture and was packed with seafood that brought a natural sweetness to pair with the subtle heat in the sauce. My only real complaint was it was quite hard to get the broth on the spoon giving the serving bowl but you could take that as a compliment as well because it means the broth was worth scraping up.

Outside of the signature dishes, the second course consisting of two different fish was my favorite set of dishes. Salmon is typically boring but the Ikarimi salmon, tomato & star anise was superb, the salmon being nicely cooked (poached?) to one of the silkiest textures I have had from the popular fish. The tomato and star anise also added nice pops of well-judged flavor. The other fish course, pikeperch, sangohachi, green radish & sake, was good for a different reason - the fish was a bit firmer but the accompanying buerre blanc sauce that had subtly been infused with sake was a real winner.

The first supplemental course was arguably Raue’s most famous dish, Wasabi Langoustine. What a dish. A nice plump langoustine, coated in wasabi mayo, tempura to perfection, and placed on top of a fish sauce mango vinaigrette. This had everything you could want in a dish. Great texture from the crunch of the langoustine, a bit of heat from the wasabi mayo which played off the buttery langoustine impeccably, and then nice sweetness and acid from the vinaigrette. Tim Raue is known for bold flavors and during the meal, there were times where I thought they went too far. This was not one of those times, the flavors being bold but in perfect balance.

The wasabi langoustine was followed up by the other signature supplement, Raue’s interpretation of Peking duck. While the meat and some of the spices were the same, I could not find much connection between Raue’s duck and the dish it is named after. The dish is served in three separate courses, from left to right: 1) duck breast with leeks, apple, and a reduced sauce that incorporated duck feet 2) a terrine of liver with a bit of crispy duck skin and cucumber and apple jell 3) a soup made of ducks tongue, heart, and gizzard. The favorite of the three was the terrine, having excellent texture and flavor with the jellies nicely balancing out the richness. The breast was also technically sound with well-crisped skin but below the level of duck you’d get at a top French restaurant. This was a good dish but in less of a jaw-dropping than the wasabi langoustine.

Suckling pig with yellow pea & dashi is another Tim Raue signature and a nice fusion of some Asian flavors with the German staple of pork knuckle. This was a very nice piece of pork that combined teeth shattering crispy skin with tender meat underneath. This was served with a side of little blots of spicy Japanese mustard and apple jelly. The sweetness of the apple jelly went great with the pork but the mustard was just too strong. While the little dots of mustard looked cool in the plating they were impractical as you would never want an entire dot on a bite of food. The other main course was a nice substantial portion of wagyu beef with allium & Madagascar pepper. The beef in question here was a nice slow-braised fork-tender beef cheek that was paired well with a nicely spiced sauce. A solid piece of cooking using an underrated cut of meat but also a dish that is hard to get excited about.

Perhaps an homage to Asian desserts which are typically less rich than their classic Western cousins, both desserts at Tim Raue were refreshing fruit-forward creations. The most striking part of the Mango, passion fruit & kaffir lime dish was the presentation with the mango components actually part of a cheesecake which had been shaped like a koi fish. Presentation aside, the overall flavors of this dish were a bit safe but comforting. Less cute but equally striking was the other dessert which included kiwi, coconut & shiso. I am not a fan of coconut but this bowl worked very well for me with a nice balance of sweetness and acid and terrific texture coming from the small meringue.

The theme of refreshing desserts continued in the last set of small sweets which mostly combined spiciness and sweetness to good effect including some wasabi caramels which I could hardly share with my wife. Unrelated to the food but still a good thing to see - despite us visiting for a midweek lunch service Tim Raue himself was at the restaurant offering a warm smile and friendly “Tschüss” on our way out.