Monday, 13 September 2021
Ice-cream has never been as popular as during the covid-19 pandemic when ice-cream parlours started early in the season, and grown-ups ceased to preach that it was too cold to have one. (Although, in August 2021, I accidentally listened to the conversation between an ultra-thin insta-styled woman, presumably in her thirties, with her parents at their weekend get-together at a an ice-cream parlour in Bremen -- while temperatures were about 22 degree Celsius: Mother, deciding on a sundae: "Wouldn't you like to have an ice-cream, too?" Daughter: "Oh, no, thank you, it's too cold. I'll have a water.")
As the interest for quality local and organic produce has been increasing (too slowly, but significantly) I wasn't surprised to find a new organic ice-cream spot in the city of Leipzig, while filling the time between two trains with a stroll.
With more than 20 shops within the city boundaries the family-owned conventional bakery Lukas seems to be the largest bakery chain in Leipzig -- probably not the place you might look for organic ice-cream. But in May 2021 they started to produce twelve types of organic ice-cream at their branch at Bayrischer Platz. This must have proved to be a success since I found it at their cafe am Brühl, though only the four most basic flavours (vanilla, mango, chocolate and strawberry), at 1.20 EUR the scoop. The cafe also offers organic fairly-traded coffee (on the spot or in a Recup retour cup to take with you) and a small assortment of organic soft-drinks -- check for the "bio" label. Unfortunaltey th milk isn't organic. The cafe has quite liberal opening hours although I'm not sure whether you can buy an ice-cream at 7 o'clock in the morning.
Just around the corner from the Macis restaurant you'll find the city's organic ice-cream maker, Tonis. Unfortunately I was too late after dinner and could only watch them closing. They also have a second branch in famous Könneritzstraße.
More to try
As mentioned above my time in Leipzig was limited (as was my upfront research) -- but here are a few more tips, for you to try (and tell me if you like):
2021-09-13 16:00:00
[Leipzig, organic, ice-cream, cafe, coffee]
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Wednesday, 08 September 2021
While organic lunch options aren't difficult to find (namely in the neighbourhoods around Altona station) the organic evening out requires more research, especially for Monday evenings. The list I am presenting here surely isn't exhaustive since it is the result of a two-days stay, so I'm glad for additional contributions.
Mediterranean
Italian antipasti, oriental mezze, Spanish tapas or a simple pasta dish -- the organically certified wine restaurant Piccolo Paradiso serves vegetarian food from the Mediterraneans. The intimate, organically certified place breathes the atmosphere of an Italian trattoria, the home-made food owes its taste to the quality of the organic ingredients rather than the skills of an ambitious chef. So do not expect a fine dining experience, instead come to enjoy mother's versions of vegetarian starters.
Advanced booking is advisable, and you shouldn't arrive too late as the kitchen closes around 10 pm.
Note that the restaurant keeps closed on Sundays and Mondays.
Burgers
A small chain consisting of two restaurants Edelsatt
is not an ordinary burger place: What you get here are tasty game burgers
served without bread or in organic buns from the Springer organic bakery. No smoke-ladden air as in many, also high-end burger grills, tasteful decoration and
reusable cotton towels in the bathrooms -- the restaurant in
the Karolinenviertel neighbourhood is most certainly a place for the extended evening out with friends or the romantic dinner.
A small assortment of organic softdrinks and beer (of the Stralsund-based Störtebeker brand) are being offered to accompany your meal, and if you don't feel for a game burger you may opt for a salmon, vegan quinoa or vegetarian aubergine-mozzarella one, or for a change, a game sausage.
The second (older) restaurant is located in Winterhude.
If burger means fast-food to you, head for Dulf's Burger a few minutes walk in Western direction. The burgers served here are made from organic beef, and the queue in front of the place was most impressive when I decided against waiting in the rain during the "Hamburger Dom" fun fair next door. If you come here I'd be glad to hear about your experience.
Fine dining
If your budget allows for the price tags of high-end cuisine you may opt for a dinner at organically certified
Landhaus Scherrer located directly at busy Elbchausee in Othmarschen, a short walk from the river promenade.
While covid-19 measures are in place the affordable bistrot is closed but its menu is available in the gourmet restaurant.
It mainly consists of fish, meat and offal dishes typical for the region, everyting of course refined and made with the best organic ingredients and accompanied with high-class French and German wines (if you decide for it). If you want to familiarise yourself with the bourgeois Sunday kitchen of the German north, this place decorated in country-house style is definitely worth it.
The typical audience however is probably not the crowd you may be used to mingle with: elderly and arrived in predominantly tasteless, yet expensive cars, though not necessarily dressed with Hanseatic style.
More to try
Here's a list of evening-open (partially) organic restaurants and eateries I found during my research but did not have time to visit. Your impressions are appreciated!
Ceased to exist
The following places shut down or were replaced by other, not organic ones, although you still find them on the web:
- Restaurant Olsen, Bellealliancestr. 45 (Mediterranean, German gourmet)
- Wakuwaku, Dammtorstr. 29-32 (Asian fastfood)
- Nat, Heuberg 1 (International)
2021-09-08 15:00:00
[Hamburg, Altona, Othmarschen, Winterhude, organic, vegetarian, restaurant, burgers, lunch, dinner, takeaway, covid, corona]
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Tuesday, 07 September 2021
Leaving the train at Altona station does not bring you to the heart of the city but to the vibrant neighbourhoods of Altona (to the East) and Ottensen (to the West) offering a great choice of lively (partially) organic places. None of them are very posh as the distinguished bourgeouis citizens usually live and roam elsewhere, and there's a good chance to mingle with locals.
Where to stay
As long as you are satisfied with a basic yet clean and well-kept hotel room head for
the Schanzenstern. The name derives from its original location in the Sternschanze neighbourhood, but even though the hostel moved to its current location surely fifteen years ago references to its old address haven't vanished from the net completely. Most rooms are
equipped with bunk beds, and you are well advised to book in advance especially if not travelling alone.
The entire building is painted in clear basic colors, orange and blue the rooms, yellow the hallway. Since rain water is used
for flushing the toilets its colour can be explained easily, and the soap dispensers in the bathroom are filled with liquid organic hand wash.
If you're travelling by bicycle there's a locked shed where you can store it safely overnight. The hostel also has a handful basic three-gear bikes to rent, at a price tag of 10 EUR per day, not to go fast, but well suited for the sett surface streets around.
The hostel's 100% organic breakfast buffet keeps open daily from 7:30 to 10:30, but is not included in the price for the night. For additional 9.50 Euro you can order it until late the evening before. The restaurant also serves organic lunch on weekdays, and there are board games and journals to spend the time with.
Bakeries
Breakfast and lunch alternatives are located within five-minutes walking distance:
For one there's the Zeit für Brot ("time for bread") artisanal show bakery next to a branch of the Denn’s organic supermarket chain in Ottenser Hauptstraße (The chain has a second supermarket nearby which also serves snacks at their self-service cafe.) Through a window you can watch the Zeit-für-Brot bakers at work while buying German bread, fresh from the oven. If stepping by for a coffee or another non-alcoholic drink, a pastry, cake, savoury snack, or a light lunch (all organic) queue with the other customers and place your order at the till. When the pandemic restrictions are over you may again find a place at one of the tables inside and enjoy the gorgeous smell of real bread together with your snack.
For the time being you have to be lucky to find a spare seat outside under a sunshade also sheltering from the occasional rain shower.
The place serves El Rojito coffee, and this is always an excuse to come here.
Cafes and lunch restaurants
Another organic breakfast alternative is cosy cafe Lillisu offering 100% organic food and drinks. In addition to breakfast the women owners also serve sandwiches, filled pasta, spaghetti, soup and salads for lunch, both vegetarian and omnivore, prepared in the tiny kitchen in view of their guests.
Place your order at the counter
and add a home-made cake from the display.
You'll be served but are expected to return to the counter for payment.
Set breakfast plates are served on weekends only.
Decorated in pastel colours this is also the place to buy nostalgic presents and some organic delicatessen (chocolates, olive oil, coffee, ...) as well as "Glück in Gläsern" ("happiness in jars"), (in)famous 100% non-organic nostalgic sweets many Germans will remember from their childhood, sold by the piece.
As in the Schanzenstern restaurant a selection of magazines from Hamburg-based publishers are there to be read by the guests.
For a coffee break my tip is the cafe of a local coffee importer specializing in the coffee of South-American co-operatives,
El Rojito. Not all of them are organically certified, but the driving force behind is a registered society which has been supporting fair and social working and trading conditions for more than 30 years.
While pandemic restrictions apply you can have your coffee outside only: There's outdoor seating in the backyard, though not in the morning and on Sundays, and some space in front of the cafe. Their coffee is also served by the Schanzenstern hostel, and the shop sells the full range of their coffee beans as well as some other items such as organic honey.
Ice-cream
For a sweet threat head back to Altona train station (where you by the way will find another organic supermarket, this time an Alnatura branch).
Since 1913 there has been an Italian ice-cream parlour in Ottenser Hauptstaße, which, after world war II became Eiscafe Venezia. Today, the owners are no longer of Italian origin, but use
organic milk for all of their about 20 flavours. Unfortunately the ice-cream isn't fully organic itself; the scoop goes for 1.40 EUR in 2021. Usually the cafe closes at midnight, but you may find it closing earlier on bad weather.
The place also serves Italian-style coffee drinks with organic milk from a proper Cimbali pressure machine, but I'd rather advise to take the extra meters to Zeit für Brot as their coffee is far better.
Zero waste
Package-free organic self-service supermarkets are also on the rise in Hamburg, and given the subcultural context of the neighbourhood you won't be surprised to find one here as well: Stückgut recently moved from its old address Am Felde 91 to a beautiful corner shop at Alma-Wartenberg-Platz. Apart from the usual product range common to all these groceries this one offers organic tea, fresh fruits and veges, antipasti and cheeses and a colourful range of liquid body care and household chemicals which make the shop a proper full-range retailer. There's a second branch in St. Pauli with a smaller product range, among others missing fresh greens.
More to try
Here's another organic cafe and a bakery I found during my research but did not have time to visit. I'll be happy if you'd share your impressions with me!
Closed during covid-19 pandemic
Closed
The following places do no longer exist although you might find them referenced on the web:
- Alohachérie, Weidenallee 2a (vegan)
- 2 B Bio-Kiosk, Juliusstrasse 2 b (late-open convenience store)
2021-09-07 11:00:01
[Hamburg, Altona, Ottensen, St_Pauli, organic, coffee, ice-cream, zero_waste, unverpackt, supermarkets, grocery, eatery, lunch, breakfast, cafe, hotel, accommodation, bakeries, covid, corona]
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Monday, 30 August 2021
For an organic day out into the countryside around Munich you might as well choose a destination with plenty options for organic food and even an overnight stay with organic breakfast at the destination: The Panoramaweg Isar-Inn bicycle route starting at Marienplatz allows you to reach such an area by bike in only 30-40 kilometers. Simply follow this route to Moosach and from there to the organic hamlet of Herrmannsdorf as part of the municipality of Glonn.
Don't expect a bicycle highway -- the parts of the route shared with cars have a tarmac underground,
but the rest are sufficiently wide gravel pathes with occasional pitholes. Nevertheless it is much more pleasurable to go here and marvel at the moraine landscape instead of using the main roads where you may be scared for your life as cars will frequently overtake you too fast and often with too little margin. It's also advisable to have a navigation app or map with you as the signage especially within build-up areas is sometimes insufficient.
Public transport isn't much faster -- an up to 1.5 hours affair (one-way) by public transport from Ostbahnhof station. Take a regional (faster) or urban train (S4) to Grafing Bahnhof, and continue with bus no. 440 to Westerndorf stop. You may take your bike on the train when buying a separate MVV-Fahrrad-Tageskarte bicycle day ticket, but not on the bus.
The Herrmannsdorf organic farm
From Westerndorf its only an about ten to 15 minutes walk (or a few minutes on bike) over the fields to the Herrmannsdorf farm, founded by meat-industrialist-turned-organic-farmer Karl Ludwig Schweisfurth and now run by his family. In addition to the organic farm with pigs and chicken roaming before the eyes of the visitors the hamlet houses an artisanal bakery, brewery and butchery, a coffee roaster's shop cum cafe dubbed Merchant & Friends, a kindergarden for the employees and a cooking and practise school offering day courses for visitors who want to learn the basics of the trades practised here at the farm. There's also an organic farm market, the
Herrmannsdorfer Hofmarkt with an outdoor garden café open when the weather is nice.
In the entrance area to this beautiful delicatessen store cum upmarket supermarket you'll find the market booth of nearby organic market gardener Gärtnerei Schmid. Depending on the season you may walk over to pick organically grown flowers from their fields and pay into the provided cash box.
The farm also has its own upmarket 100% organic restaurant, the Wirtshaus zum Herrmannsdorfer Schweinsbräu, for meat lovers definitely worth the troubles of getting here. The rustic and newly refurbished restaurant offers high-standard traditional Bavarian and Austrian cuisine based on the freshest ingredients including the farm's famous own beer and assorted spirits. The elaborately hand-written menu may be difficult to decipher, and even if you can read it you may have difficulties to understand what you read as it is deliberately flavoured with Austrian food terms. So better ask if you don't feel adventurous. It is also advised to book your table for the restaurant (ring in on your way here if you forgot to do so a few days in advance), and mandatory if you plan to come on weekends or on public holidays.
The restaurant which also has an outdoor sitting area is closed 30th December through 14th January, 2020.
If you are wondering what you are going to eat stroll through the farm and greet the pigs and piglets. During the warm season you can also sit outside under horse chestnut trees: There are food stalls, but as the Bavarian tradition of beer gardens goes you may also bring your own food (not the drinks though!). For the home-made ice-cream in a cone (only available in the warm season) walk upstairs to the restaurant. A single serving comes at 1.80 EUR.
In May, before Easter and Christmas the farm gives host to its traditional arts and crafts markets. Especially the advent market is a pleasant alternative to commercial Christmas markets in town. On these days a free bus transfer is provided from and to Grafing Bahnhof, and you may book a tour through the farm or one of the workshops. There are also special tours for kids. All tours and workshops (also outside the festivals) can be booked in advance at the website.
Sonnenhausen
If you feel that a day tour isn't sufficient turn to the right instead of to the left at the bus stop Westerndorf, and follow the way to Gut Sonnenhausen, an organic and sustainably driven Bio-Hotel located in a carefully and tastefully restored manor. Although conferences, weddings and other celebrations are their main business bed and breakfast guests are welcome, too.
More to try: Westerndorf, Piusheim, Oberpframmmern, Glonn and Grafing
If you’re looking for a cheaper place to stay the Schmiedhof organic farm in Westerndorf has a guesthouse where you can enjoy eggs and cheese (and most certainly also milk) from the farm for
breakfast. Simply let the farmers know in advance that you wish to have breakfast.
For something different take a bicycle ride to Piusheim: On Thursdays, Fridays, weekends and public holidays the Glonntaler Backkultur organic cafe cum restaurant keeps open and serves 100 percent organic lunch, dinner and snacks using the gorgeous products of their artisanal bakery as well as other locally produced delicacies like the
cheeses of the local organic dairy Hofkäserei Stroblberg. Each Friday it's pizza evening starting at 5 o'clock, and if you're lucky you may step by while one or another cultural arrangement is taking place.
During the warm season there's also a spacious beer garden.
The bakery shop is located in the entrance area at the opposite site of the house, and on weekday mornings you may head for the bakehouse in Mühlenweg ("mill lane").
Glonntaler Backkultur also runs two Sunday-open bakery shops in Glonn and Grafing which are closed on public holidays that are Monday through Saturday. Both have in- and outdoor seating for a snack or coffee break. Next to the shop in Glonn there’s a small fair-trade gift shop dubbed Handfairlesenes. On occasions you may find it open outside the quite restricted official opening hours, so step by for handicraft and other fairly traded products.
Coming from (or heading to) Zorneding or Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn there's a good chance that you will pass the village of Oberpframmern on your bicycle route. Stop by the
Maierei organic farm ("Dein Bauernhof" -- "your farm") with its 24x7 self-service shop. More products from the farm -- veges, eggs from hens of a dual purpose breed, home-made preserves, Christmas trees in December and more are available on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings when the shop is serviced.
2021-08-30 18:00:00
[Munich, Glonn, Grafing, Herrmannsdorf, Oberpframmern, Piusheim, Westerndorf, organic, fair, lunch, dinner, market, bakeries, deli, coffee, hotel, accommodation, cafe, restaurant, pizza, ice-cream, Bavarian, German, cycling, farms]
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Wednesday, 25 August 2021
To put it short: To my knowledge, there are no hotels, motels or guest houses
with a dedicated focus on sustainability and/or circular economy in Trondheim,
not even one offers 100 percent organic breakfast.
Before the covid-19 pandemics the hotels of the Choice chain advertised with organic breakfast items and Debio label certificates in bronce which is awarded to food places offering at minimum 15 percent organic items. In the case of the otherwise boring conference hotel Augustin at the corner of Kongens and Prinsens Gate this allowed for an organic breakfast consisting of apple juice, crispy oat-cerials with a tasty type of sourmilk ("tjukkmjølk") or low-fat milk from Røros meieriet, alternatively soy milk, crispbread with honey, peanut butter, brie and a blue-mould cheese as well as hard-boiled eggs a few years ago.
On a stay at Comfort Hotel Park at the corner of Prinsens gate and Bispegata the 15 percent mixture consisted of all organic coffee and fat-free cow milk (but conventional oat and soy milk), organic Earl Grey tea, dark rye bread and one type of crisp bread, a good selection of organic cerials, raisins, apples, orange marmelade, peanut butter, honey, and boiled eggs. The Park hotel bar's fridge next to the entrance offered organic lemonade and cola (of the "Oskar Sylte" brand) as well as canned organic iced coffee mixes, but all this might have changed in the past few years.
The city's hotel institution Britannia in Dronningens Gate, once a certified eco lighthouse reopened after years of renovation. Before that they offered a small selection of organic veges and bread at the breakfast buffet, but I cannot confirm whether this is still the case – the price tag for a night at the hotel has increased dramatically since their reopening as a pet project of the owner of Norway's biggest food retailer, Rema.
Just a few steps west, crossing Nordre and Jomfrugate you will find Hotel City Living Schøller a budget option which was recommended to me by Alicia from Portland, Oregon after reading this blog. She described her room as having "zero
perfume – none on the sheets nor in the cleansers. The room felt fresh and
healthy, if quite simple." The hotel provides guests with
a 15 percent discount at nearby Godt Brød bakery cum cafe for breakfast, and offers a kitchen for
guest use.
2021-08-25 18:00:00
[Trondheim, hotel, accommodation]
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