Hamburg Restaurants and Dining

(Hamburg, Germany)

When holidaying in Hamburg, you can expect to start the day off with a 'rundstück' bread roll, cold meats and cheese, a popular breakfast served at many of the city's hotel restaurants. For lunch, why not head to a local cafe and enjoy a freshly made open sandwich or seasonal soup? For fine dining in the evening, Hamburg's many gourmet restaurants offer the perfect way to end a day out.

Those not keen on German cuisine will find plenty of other international choices in Hamburg, including both restaurants and pubs. However, all have one thing in common and offer an extensive selection of local beers, often almost as impressive as the menu itself.

What to Eat

When dining out in Hamburg, the local cuisine is strongly influenced by its northerly location, where the cuisine tends to be particularly meaty or fish-based, very rich and featuring many root vegetables. Known for its many regional dishes and specialities, when dining out in Hamburg, popular dishes include:

• Aalsuppe - tasty meat broth, with vegetables, dried fruit and even some pieces of eel
• Birnen, bohnen und speck - a surprisingly pleasant dish of pears, beans and bacon
• Bratwurst - a beef, pork or veal sausage, usually grilled
• Franzbrötchen - a cinnamon and raisin pasty, with the appearance of a flat croissant
• Grünkohl mit Pinkel - a taste mixture of bacon, pork belly and kale
• Jükääg - a popular cabbage roll
• Labskaus - a traditional fish and meat stew, often made with corned beef and herring, then topped with a fried egg
• Pinkelwurst - a beef, pork and onion based sausage
• Sauerkraut - finely sliced cabbage, fermented and known for its distinctive sour flavour

Where to Eat

Typical of harbour cities, many of the restaurants within Hamburg cater well for tourists and are to be found close to the waterfront itself. Many of these have a definite international flavour and in particular, Portuguese cuisine plays a major part of this local dining scene.

The historic Altstadt (Old Town) district is sure to please and the restaurants here are often full of character and often close to the Bleichen Canal. Fine dining is clustered in definite pockets around Old Town Hamburg, and in particular around Brodschrangen, Grosse Johannisstrasse, Jungfernstieg, Zippelhaus and lines areas of the Deichstrasse, next to the Nikolai Canal.

For further dining options, be sure to check out the many restaurants, bistros and other eateries located within the very heart of the city centre, around the St. Georg district, around the notorious St. Pauli (red-light district) also within the Universitätsviertel region (University Quarter), all over Fettstrasse and Grindelallee. For some of the trendiest and most lively restaurants and dining spots in Hamburg, head to the riverfronts of Altona and Ovelgönne, where keen foodies are never disappointed.