Food: French modern cuisine with German influences
Address: Althoff Seehotel Überfahrt, Überfahrtstraße 10 83700 Rottach-Egern, Germany
Phone Number: +49 80 22 / 669 0
Website: www.seehotel-ueberfahrt.com
Guide Michelin: 3 stars
Gault & Millau: 19,5 points
What I paid: 500 € (tasting menu, very good wine, water and coffee. Per person.)
Visited: February 18, 2017

Restaurant Überfahrt is located in a 5-star hotel in the Tegernsee valley, a nature resort about 50 kilometers south of Munich. The Althoff Seehotel Überfahrt, with its 3000m² luxury SPA, located directly on the banks of Tegernsee is also very close to the border of Austria.

This Bavarian location is very cozy and it really feels that you are far more away from the buzz, in the nearby Munich area, than you actually are, though it’s only a 45 minutes’ drive by car. It is said that here, traditions are maintained, and that traditional costumes are worn with pride. The area is not only for summer vacations and there are for instance alpine skiing in Spitzingsee and more than 100 kilometers of cross-country ski trails in and around the Tegernsee valley.

Head chef Christian Jürgens started at restaurant Überfahrt in 2008 and gained two stars almost directly. Überfahrt were awarded the third star in the 2014 Guide Michelin. Jürgens has trained for many of the top chefs in Germany; e.g. for Heinz Winkler at Tantris (then a 3-star Guide Michelin restaurant) and Eckart Witzigmann at Aubergine (now closed, but then a 3-star restaurant).

Restaurant Überfahrt has two main tasting menus to choose from; MENU I (5 or 7 servings) and MENU II (5 servings).  After some debating, we decided to go for MENU I with 7 servings.

MENU I (7 servings)

AMUSE-BOUCHE

AMUSE-BOUCHE #1

AMUSE-BOUCHE #1 (part 2)

The first amuse-bouche was really good!

AMUSE-BOUCHE #2

Also, the second amuse-bouche was really tasty!

BREAD

BREAD

Oil and salt for the bread

AMUSE-BOUCHE

AMUSE-BOUCHE #3

This third and last amuse-bouche, that constituted a bacon “sandwich”, was one the better servings this dinner. Very good!

BAKED APPLE | Gala royal, boudin noir, goose liver

BAKED APPLE | Gala royal, boudin noir, goose liver

AMBER | Bone marrow, mashed poatatoe and leek, roasted butter

No pic…

Überfahrt recommended Imperial Persicus caviar for this dish, a € 4,00 per gram. For me and my friend, this meant a total of €100 extra for this dinner…

CATCH OF THE DAY | Langostine, St.Jaques, sardine, bouchot mussels, stock of bouillabaise

CATCH OF THE DAY | Langostine, St.Jaques, sardine, bouchot mussels, stock of bouillabaise

Good, but not outstanding.

BRUSSELS LACE | Chicory, snow peas, Wagyu ham, sauce béarnaise

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of this dish as well. That being said, it was kind of bland for me.

FIREBIRD | Grilled Bresse pigeon, pepper sauce, whoami pumpkin

Grilled Bresse pigeon, pepper sauce, whoami pumpkin

I chose this pigeon dish from MENU II (instead of JACK THE RABBIT | Wild rabbit, beet root, sauce rouennaise) and this was the highlight for me this dinner. Maybe I should have opted for the MENU II instead…

I have never experienced a pumpkin this delicious and I have no clue about the pumpkin variety “whoami” (as it was labeled on both the english and the german menus).

Also, the green pepper sauce was really good and worked very well with the pigeon and the pumpkin.

CHEESE SELECTION | From Maitre Affineur Waltmann from Erlangen, Germany

CHEESE SELECTION

For the cheese…

PAUL PAIRET STYLE LEMON | Lemon, sorbet, mousse, champagne

Lemon, sorbet, mousse, champagne

Nice!

PATISSERIE

PATISSERIE

PATISSERIE

 A fun ending of the dinner, but not extraordinary tasty.

Summary: I enjoyed my dinner at Überfahrt. That being said, apart from the last amuse-bouche (i.e. the “bacon sandwich”) and the grilled pigeon (with the delicious pumpkin and green pepper sauce) I missed the WOW factor in most of the other dishes.

The wines:

Wines for the dinner

The female sommelier (from Salzburg) contributed a lot to the overall good experience this evening. Apart from the lovely 2011 F.X Pichler Unendlich (which I choose myself) she recommended a wine I haven’t had before. This wine, a 2011 Domaine de la Grange de Péres is a blend of 40% Syrah, 40% Mourvèdre, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Counoise. Laurent Vaillé spent his early career training under such masters as Jean-François Coche-Dury (Meursault), Gérard Chave (Hermitage), and Eloi Durrbach (Domaine Trévallon, Provence), he settled in the l’Hérault of the Languedoc and purchased his own land in 1989, near Aniane. In this area of the region, where the limestone is hard and abundant and the soil poor, no one thought he would ever have any success planting a vineyard on his plot of choice. Though it took dynamite and bulldozing to clear twice the amount of limestone, boulders, and glacial scree that is found in neighboring vineyards, he found a great terroir for his grapes. He did not have to look far to find ideal bud wood, either. He sourced his Syrah, Marsanne, and Roussane cuttings from Gérard Chave and his Cabernet from Domaine Trévallon. Laurent’s South-facing vines get very low yields, normally from twenty to twenty-five hectoliters per hectare. All are pruned in the gobelet style. The simultaneous restraint and power of his wines makes them ideal for aging. As for the skeptics, they are currently eating their words. His area of the Languedoc has since become known to produce some of the greatest wines in the region, with the new appellation of Terrasses du Larzac, of which he is technically part, reaping attention and praise. In his words, “Nature gave us a partition of land. It is up to us to interpret it.”