Launched two years ago as a pop-up restaurant, "arc" is already one of the most outstanding restaurants in Germany. Joshua Feldkirchner, previously at Hamburg's "Vier Jahreszeiten", and Julian Rickert, formerly sous-chef at Berlin's "Coda", create a seasonal and regional ten-course menu with a focus on pescatarian cuisine. The bookmark-sized menu and the "friends book" displayed in the restaurant provide an insight into the provenance of the produce used. For example, the fish comes from Forellenhof Benecke, the dairy produce from Öko Melkburen and the tomatoes from Kleverhof. The food is served with hand-carved wooden spoons by Luke Hope from London on plates by Hamburg studio Maals, accompanied by elegant wine glasses by a Danish designer.
The starters are convincing across the board: a churro ball filled with dyke cheese cream and fermented rhubarb. Highlights include home-baked focaccia with salted butter, refined with a rich, malty, caramelised bread miso, and salmon trout perfectly cooked in nut butter with leek purée and a tomato and zucchini foam. The dessert is just as sophisticated: sorrel ice cream on a creamy celery foam, complemented by a light parsley broth with verjus, and dried blueberries in pumpkin seed oil, beet ice cream and koji bergamot foam create a perfectly balanced composition of flavours and textures. The non-alcoholic accompaniment is first-class, and the wines are mainly from Germany and Alsace. Host Franz Kirsch rounds off the evening perfectly with his competent service.
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