Waldhotel Sonnora
Waldhotel Sonnora review at-a-glance
Awards: 3 michelin star, 19.5 gault milau
+Top of the line classical french cooking - think flawlessly cooked proteins and rich sauces
+Abundant use of luxury ingredients for a price lower than almost every other 3 star in Germany (and a fraction of the cost of a similar restaurant in Paris)
+Friendly FOH which gave my favourite kind of service - friendly and warm without being overly formal
-You won’t find any molecular gastronomy here but this is the highest level of classical cooking and as long as you enjoy that you will enjoy the meal here
-The interior could use a bit of an updating
Verdict: The food at Waldhotel Sonnora is confident. You won’t find any garish table side presentations, soliloquies on hyper local sourcing, or needlessly complicated dishes here. Instead, you get perfectly sourced products cooked to exacting detail and served with rich sauces that taste like they have been reduced for days. The result is endless parade of dishes that first and foremost taste great. While this type of cooking does not work for everyone it worked for me. Tasting the classic dishes at Waldhotel Sonnora is a real treat that you should expirence if you can. It is my favorite of the four “classical” three stars in Germany (the others being Schwarzwaldtube, Bareiss and GästeHaus Klaus Erfort) and in my mind better than any of the three stars I have had in Paris.
Rating: 98/100
Value: 18/20
Waldhotel Sonnora & Chef Clemens Rambichler
Waldhotel Sonnora has a long history that is very different than the other three stars in Germany, almost all of which follow a similar pattern in that the chefs were mentored by the great German chefs of past and presents (Deiter Meuller, Sven Elverfeld, Harold Wolfahrt, Heinz Winkler) and are located in large luxury hotels. As the name suggests, Waldhotel Sonnora is also in a hotel but it is a far cry from the big chains like Althoff and Marriott which house many of Germany’s three stars.
Instead, it is a family business. Originally opened in 1978 by the Thieltges family with the son, Helmut, helping his mother with the hotel while also running the kitchen. Helmut was soon joined by his wife Ulrike who manages the FOH and began working his way up the michelin ranks, earning the ultimate third star in 2000 which the restaurant has kept in the 20 years since.
Sadly, Helmut died in 2017 but the proud tradition he built is carried on by Ulrike and the young Clemens Rambichler who has retained the three stars for the restaurant. As a testament to the business the Thieltges’ built, the restaurant was full on a January Sunday lunch despite its remote (but pleasant) location in Dreis, Germany.
The restaurant offers a 6 and 8 course tasting menus for €175 and €225, respectively with an extra charge of €35 for including the famous beef tartar and caviar tart which is reasonable given it includes 12g of imperial gold caviar. Given the quality of the cooking and the ingredients used at Waldhotel Sonnora this is a relative bargain, even by Germanys cheaper 3 star standards.
Waldhotel Sonnora also offers large wine list and, fitting of its location, particularly deep in its German Rieslings. No wine by the glass was listed on the menu but they were happy to pair as many glasses as I wanted and did so at very generous prices for a three-star - a glass of Von Hovel 2010 Riesling rang in at €10 which is less than the retail cost of the bottle and about half of what you would pay for a glass of wine at a three-star in Paris.
What we ate at Waldhotel Sonnora
Simply labeled “Overture” on the menu the meal started with a dizzying array of nibbles. First up was a vine-ripened tomoato garspacho with cucumber and shrimp, a refreshing way to wake up your taste buds for the rest of the meal. This was followed up by a poached quail egg tart topped with slice of alba truffle. This was a fine bite, the tart was crisp, the egg yolk creamy and the alba truffle packed plenty of heady aroma despite being a bit past their peak season.
These initial bites were followed by a trilogy of compositions brought out on one plate. From left to right this plate featured a gillardeau oyster topped with imperial gold caviar, label rogue salmon with onion and avocado, and a fried dumpling with mango chutney. All three amuses were excellent with the oyster standing out with the caviar adding a nice touch of luxury to the whole affair. A great start from Clemens Rambichler and the entire kitchen at Waldhotel Sonnara.
The first proper dish of the meal also happened to be the restaurant’s most famous, beef tartar with 12g of imperial gold caviar, and creme fraiche, all served on top of a potato rosti. Given the huge amount of caviar on the dish, there was a €35 surcharge to include it in the tasting menu that I happily paid. The best piece of pie you could ever have. In lieu of the traditional pie crust, the bottom was made up of a delicate potato rosti, fried golden brown and giving great textural contrast to the well-seasoned beef. On top of the beef and rosti was a glorious layer of golden imperial caviar, each individual pearl of caviar bursting in your mouth. Caviar on beef tartar is not an invention of the restaurant but they have taken the combination to new height. Starting a tasting menu with such a spectacular dish sets a high standard. Fortunately the rest of the meal kept up.
Langoustines Royales with baby carrots, cauliflower, with champagne sauce, curry and coconut was the first seafood dish of the day. Langoustines, rarely used in the US, are frequent guests on European Michelin menus and ones I have grown quite fond of. The langoustines here were from Loctudy, a seaside town in Brittany and were of superb quality. In my mind just as good as the langoustine at L’Ambroisie and only a very small notch below the very best ones I had in Faore Islands.
It is never a bad thing when they put a dish on the table you can’t tell what it is because it is so draped in truffles. After lifting some of the truffles out of the way this turned out to be calf’s sweetbread with macaroni-noodle, green asparagus, porto/black truffle sauce. Sweetbreads are never my favorite but these were well done. Given it featured noodles and a truffle sauce I couldn’t help but compare this dish to the Spaghetti Le Timble at Le Cinq. While this dish didn’t live up to the hedonistic high of the one at Le Cinq, it was still a three-star dish through and through,
The meal continued with Turbot from Vendee paired with mussels from Mont St Michel, lobster, saffron-fennel sauce and sundried San Marzano tomatoes. For me, the success of cooked fish dishes often comes down to the success of the sauce and the saffron sauce here did not disappoint, having a great flavor and going well with the fish and shellfish including the lobster. A few pomme souffles and deep fried fennel smartly added some exciting crunch.
The main course of Challans duck breast with grilled foie gras, blood orange sauce, and winter spices was a fitting end to the savory courses. In the last year, I have eaten some creative interpretations of duck dishes but nothing tops this classic version. The protein was flawless - crispy skin, moist pink meat served with a jus so deep in flavor I had to feel bad for the kitchen staff who stood over the pot for hours reducing it to its final form. Foie gras can be prepared many ways but for nothing beats seared, the version here providing the perfect contrasting texture between firm exterior and soft interior that I miss when someone makes this wonderful product into a terrine. All this richness was balanced out nicely by the acid and slight bitterness from the orange segments. Classic french cooking at the highest level.
During black truffle season, Waldhotel Sonnara swaps out the traditional cheese cart for Brie de meaux which they stuffed in-house with Perigord black truffles. Rather than describe the dish just visit Clemens Rambichlar’s instagram for a video him making this wonderful cheese - see all those truffles? It tastes exactly like you think it does. Served with a very nice lamb lettuce salad with a zippy champagne vinaigrette mixed table side that added a nice touch of lightness to the rich cheese.
The first of the desserts was a Little delight of “Monreal” clementine and fluffy froth of Tahiti vanilla that brought me back to my childhood with its combination of orange and vanilla reminding me of a much more sophisticated version of a creamsicle. The flavor of the clementine and vanilla were both incredibly concentrated and worked in harmony together. A little delight indeed.
The delightful clementine was followed by an apple dessert “Blanc Manger” of almonds with baked apples ice cream, sea-salt caramel and a calvados sabayon. The dish had a comforting and familiar combination of flavors, displaying an impressive array of techniques to incorporate these flavors into various components. Calvados, an apple brandy from the Normandy region of France, is not my favorite so, while I appreciated it worked nicely with the other ingredients, I could have used a tad less of the sabayon.
Stray thoughts
Service was flawless throughout with the FOH exhibiting genuine warmth - a style of service I much prefer over the rigid formality most three stars seem to go with. Ulrike Thieltges roamed the dining room, making sure everyone was well taken care of and making sure the high standard of the kitchen carried on to the servers.
The interior could use a bit of updating but this had no impact on the meal.