Intense - Wachenheim an der Weinstrasse
Counter seating in the main dining room
Rating: 17/20
Where: Wachenheim an der Weinstrasse, Germany
When: Dinner for 2 on 18 July 2024
Cost Per Person: Tasting menu 185 Euro, Wine pairing 105 Euro
Accolades: 1 Michelin Star
Why: Intensely flavored dishes that take inspirations from local and Japanese cuisines
“Intense” is a one-Michelin-starred restaurant in the heart of the Pfalz - a prominent wine region in Germany -, in a small town called Wachenheim an der Weinstrasse. Given the town's name (literally: “Wachenheim on the wine road”), it's not surprise that countless wineries dot its main street and surroundings.
Speaking of wineries, whenever we go wine tasting, our favorite questions to the staff is “where should we go next?”, leading to a string of insider recommendations that often takes us off the beaten path. We had dinner at Intense thanks to the culinary equivalent of that question - the restaurant came highly recommended by the chef of Localis in faraway California.
When we arrived for our 7:30pm reservation on a warm, summery day, we did a double take. Standing in what we thought was the right spot on the town's main street, we saw several restaurants and a wine bar, but none of them were the Michelin-starred restaurant that we were looking for. It turned out that the correct building - nondescript, white-painted, and with a closed door - had only a small, easy-to-miss sign. Luckily, the door opened when we approached, and we were led into a small lounge with windows facing the street. This room, with its green-painted walls and green velvet couches, had a bit of a 70s flair, and was to be our home for the first four appetizers. It turns out that the chef is a big fan of restaurant Frantzén in Stockholm, and has also structured his dinner as a progression through three different dining rooms.
We were offered several alcoholic and non-alcoholic aperitifs, which were a sensible choice since the wine pairing only started much later, in the main dining room. As it happens, said wine pairing was actually pretty good and included a beer and a sake, but had only one local wine - a curious choice given that we were in the middle of a major wine region. Maybe the local wines wouldn't have gone as well with the food?
Our first four bites were plated by a chef right inside the lounge, and all were based on regional specialties. The appetizer “menu” consisted of four ceramic tiles that had been set into our table.
First up: “Gequellde mit weißem Kees” is usually a dish of boiled potatoes and quark - a popular German milk product somewhere between sour cream and yogurt. In this case, we received a quark soufflé decorated with a paprika potato chip, fresh sliced radishes, horseradish oil and smoked mushroom garum vinegar. The dish was nicely crunchy (thanks to the potato chip and the radishes) and creamy due to the quark. A fresh, summery beginning to our meal 16.
“Kirschplotzen” would ordinarily be a cherry cake, but Intense's version was based on duck liver that had been prepared to resemble foie gras. It came in a small taco shell, and was garnished with cherries, almonds, black pepper, and dark chocolate. The result was crunchy thanks to the taco and the almonds, creamy, sweet and thankfully not too heavy for a “foie gras” dish 17. The pescatarian alternative was a taco filled with hamachi sashimi, a fermented cherry sauce and shiso. I took a bite, but after the much stronger tasting duck liver, I couldn't really appreciate the more delicate flavors here. My wife assured me that the dish was very good, though.
“Weck, Worschd un Woi” translates to “bread roll, sausage and wine”. In this case, we were served a toasted brioche that had been poached in dashi and then topped with mustard, an onion confit, house-made coppa sausage and deep-fried parsley. I liked the brioche, and the meat was also very flavorful - yummy! Interestingly, this bite was a bit sweet 17. The pescatarian alternative was very different: a miso/potato soup that contained mashed potatoes, caramelized onions and a deep-fried potato skin. Creamy and flavorful 16.
“Dampfnudel un Woisoss” indeed featured a steamed dumpling (“Dampfnudel”) that had been fried in browned butter to make it crispy on one side. Instead of a “wine sauce” we received a foamy beurre blanc, which served as a dip for the dumpling. The dumpling was very good, and very buttery indeed - excess butter oozed out when we tore it into pieces. The vinegary sauce was a nice complement to this butteriness, lightening up the dish. Seemingly simple but quite tasty 17.
Having finished our introductory snacks, we were led towards the back of the house, into a room that was used for both baking bread and aging meats. Here, we were treated to a display of ingredients that would be used during the rest of our meal (another nod to Frantzén). This was followed by a little snack, again prepared right in front of us. Sauerkraut, trout, trout cream, a potato chip, horseradish, onions, … - lots of ingredients that translated into another bite bursting with flavors, while being notably acidic with a light fish taste 17.
The final destination of our journey through the restaurant was the main dining room, which was decorated primarily in black and had a prominent open kitchen. There was counter seating right in front of the kitchen, as well as six other tables. The design of this room was decidedly modern - a huge contrast to the old-fashioned exterior of the house. Apparently the building is protected, which means that only minor changes were allowed in the front part of the house, but the designers were able to go wild in the back. This main dining room could be in, say, Copenhagen, for all one knew - there were no small-town vibes here at all.
Two more small bites arrived before the official beginning of the tasting menu. A jelly made from beef consommé was seasoned with a home-made XO sauce and sat on top of a truffle-flavored yogurt. Another flavorful dish: the XO sauce in particular provided lots of flavor, and also some texture thanks to the bacon crumbles in it. Good, but I didn't fully know what to make of the yogurt in this dish 16. The pescatarian alternative was a pickled tamago egg, similarly served with truffled yogurt in addition to some sliced truffles on top. This dish tasted mostly of egg yolks - the truffle flavor was very light 15.
A smoked piece of eel was topped with shredded marinated radishes, and sat on top of sliced radishes pickled in dashi vinegar, a jelly made of eel trimmings, wasabi, and a cream of plums and dashi. Yet another dish that was full of flavor - the eel was meaty, and the acidic vinegar gave it some lift, making it feel lighter 17.
The picture of the next dish shows only a nasturtium leaf, but the main ingredient of the tasting menu's first “official” course was trout. It was served in a bowl made of ice, and came with a jelly of trout bones, apples, a cream of leeks, a miso of habaneros and some shoyu. The trout tartare combined with the creamy sauce created an explosion of flavors: a good fish tartare, a creamy sauce, notable spiciness from the habaneros, and plenty of salt. A dish that did the restaurant's name justice 18.
Soba noodles made with 40% buckwheat were wrapped around shrimp tartare that had been marinated with shrimp head oil and briefly grilled. Also in the bowl: marinated ginger, Amalfi lemons, chives, a dollop of caviar (for an additional 25 Euro), and a broth made from last year's preserved tomatoes, carcasses of shrimp, elderflower oil and vinegar. This was another lovely course: there was some sweetness from the broth and the shrimp, saltiness from the caviar and acidity from the vinegar. The caviar was optional, but made this a far superior dish 17.
A grilled shrimp came topped with a thin slice of nine-month-aged lardo and some tempura crumbles. Roasted artichokes, chili-marinated peaches, cubes of pork knuckles and a bit of crustacean oil were served in the same bowl. The large shrimp was perfectly cooked, and the result was again strong on flavors. A bit spicy, meaty, and also fruity from the peaches. Adding fruits to a savory dish can easily backfire, but here it enhanced the overall flavor without being distracting - a great accomplishment. If one had to nitpick, then one could say that this dish felt a bit rough around the edges, not quite as polished as you might expect from a Michelin-starred restaurant. But still very tasty 17. The pescatarian version of the dish replaced the pork knuckles with a grilled filet of medai, a nicely meaty fish 17.
Next: a chawanmushi dressed with a two-year-aged pea miso and a beurre blanc seasoned with tomato and lemon verbena. It was made into a “current vegetable season” dish with the addition of peas, three kinds of beans (fava, broad, wax), a potato cooked in brown butter and some rolled-up zucchini slivers. The chawanmushi was served quite hot, and interestingly, this was the first dish of the evening that was pretty light in flavors. The potato was nice enough, but the vegetables provided texture rather than taste 14. The paired wine (a 2016 Knipser Chardonnay Fumé) was a surprisingly good match for the dish - the wine by itself was very funky, but that was tamed by the food and the two ended up going quite well together.
Before the final savory dish, it was time for a bread course. A sliced sourdough bread had been baked in the restaurant - in fact, the chef had originally been a baker before moving into the kitchen. Made with whole grains, caraway seeds and bread miso, the bread came with an herb dip containing tomatoes, tarragon, and a plethora of other ingredients that were recited too quickly for me to take notes. The bread had a nice crunch, and the dip was quite flavorful 16.
On to the main savory course, a duck that had been aged for two days with shio koji - an aging method that supposedly accomplishes in a couple of days what would normally take several weeks. The duck was served atop a rice flour cake and some braised leg meat. Next to it: a broccoli floret, a Jerusalem artichoke (and a chip of the same), a duck skin crisp, and two sauces: one made of sake and mirin, the other of duck liver. The duck was actually pretty good (and this is coming from a non-duck-fan), but this was a much heavier dish than what had came before it - the general lightness of the tasting menu took a brief break 16. For that reason, I actually preferred the pescatarian replacement for the duck. It was a miso-glazed filet of brill that was served with a sturgeon fish cake and the same sides as the duck (except for the ones containing duck, that is). The fish was very nicely prepared, with the sauce and fish cake being especially flavorful 17.
The palate cleanser consisted of Japanese crushed ice served over a yuzu marmalade. There was also a long list of other ingredients, but they were recited at a breakneck speed, so I only caught ginger beer and a homemade gin. Overall, the ice was the least prominent ingredient here. The yuzu marmalade was thick and jammy, and made this dish quite sweet for a palate cleanser that was supposed to be a bridge between savory and sweet courses 15.
We then shared an optional dessert, the Bee Sting cake (Bienenstich), a signature dish of the restaurant - in fact, the name of the restaurant (Intense) came from a blogger's description of this very dish. What we were served was a deconstructed version of the traditional German cake, containing an almond cream, white chocolate, a roasted yeast custard, vanilla ice cream (reportedly made with ten times the normal amount of vanilla beans), some crumbles, drizzled local honey and an almond/caramel crisp. On the side was a caramelized brioche. The combination of all ingredients was sweet, crunchy, and had a strong vanilla flavor - reminiscent of the classic cake 16. The paired cocktail made from almonds and Hennessy liquor was not my favorite, unfortunately.
There was time for one more dessert, this one based on berries. Interestingly, we were given the option to receive this dish at half its regular size - always a welcome choice at the end of a long meal, especially after adding an extra course. A ring of dried fruits was wrapped around a fruit cream, and came with shiso marinated berries, berry powder, a sorbet of rose champagne, a red berry “dashi”, and the oil of kaffir limes and berry seeds. A fruity and slightly acidic dessert. The ice cream's rose flavor was a bit (too) strong for me when taken by itself, but together with the rest of the dish it worked quite well 16.
Five petit fours concluded our meal. A “Babybel cheese course” was made from Camembert cream flavored with preserved truffles and encased in a lingonberry shell. A nice, cheesy, savory bite 16. Next, a play on “Werther's Original” (a caramel hard candy from Germany) consisted of a fudge made from habanero miso. Spicy, with an almost meaty/porky taste, this was not my favorite - I would have preferred the original Werther's Original 13. A tiny “chocolate” bar was actually not made of chocolate, but of Grünkern grains and koji. Not bad, and a bit grainier than regular chocolate 16. The shape of a macaroon made with hazelnuts and white chocolate was meant to resemble a hippo. It was quite hazelnutty, and a bit reminiscent of Ferrero Raffaellos 15. Finally, cotton candy had been wrapped around a freeze-dried strawberry. Pleasant, with a light berry flavor 15.
Overall: A meal full of dishes that exploded with flavors. There was nary any letup in intensity, and amazingly, all dishes remained well-balanced. The inspirations for the menu were an idiosyncratic mix of local Palatine dishes and Japanese influences - but since the dishes generally leaned solidly one way or the other, this didn't lead to any clashes in competing cuisines. Closer to two stars than one, I suspect that the main reason that this restaurant is not more widely known is its out-of-the-way location. Definitely worth a detour then 17.
