Darmstadt Restaurants

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I've been to this restaurant on two occasions, one in the middle of summer eating out on the Platz and once in the winter during the Christmas Market season. Both times the food was good, the beer was tasty and the service was excellent. Their food menu is fairly short but all the dishes have been very good. Brauerei is part of their name for a reason and their beer is quite good. During the Christmas season they brew a very tasty Bock beer.

Both times I've been there I had the same waiter who spoke very good English and loved to mess with his customers (or at least liked to mess with me). He was very attentive and our beer glasses did not remain empty for long.

The location of the restaurant is perfect. In the summer you can sit outside and watch everyone hanging out in the platz. In the winter the Christmas market is right out it's front door.

Favorite Dish: I would recommend the goulash dish with a side order of fried potatoes. The goulash contains very tasty meat in a dark gravy. The fried potatoes are awesome! I couldn't stop eating them and they were on my friend's plate.

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We have several beergardens in town but the best is without doubt the Bavarian Biergarten in the northeast of town. On a huge areal they have space for approximately 1300 seatings (that’s what the website says) and I can confirm that I always found a place to squeeze in, even if it is crowded. Well, in warm weather it is always crowded. During the week it is the meeting place for a lot of business people who gather up here with friends and colleagues after work. During weekends, families come in herds with their kids, and bikers stop here to fill up their stomach. It is a very much popular place – for many reasons.

The food is excellent, yes, and it is even true Bavarian. The beer garden has three sections with different food and service.
First there is the restaurant inside with seatings for around 60 people. Here a la carte dishes are served with emphasis to the several German game dishes (wild boar and deer).
Outside is a fenced section (near the entrance to the restaurant) where also a la carte dishes are served. The majority of the space is for the beer garden itself, self service and a reduced selection of food. But this does not at all take the fun away, as these dishes are typical Bavarian ones like potato and cabbage salad or sauerkraut (2,50 € each), Bavarian Weißwurst (“white” sausage, served boiled, two for 5,00 €), Leberkäs’ with mustard (4,80 €) and Schweinsbraten with dumplings (roast pork, 8,90 €) and much more. The outside works as follows: first go to the drinking counter (on the left side), order your drinks or beer, pay and pick up your beverages. Then go to the food counter (right side), order your selection and pay. You will get your dishes mostly immediately. If you have to wait, they usually bring it to your table. What I don't know though is if the Bavarian principle of "bring your Brotzeit" (hearty snacks) is allowed here.

Favorite Dish: Good question. What is my favourite dish? This depends on my mood and why I am there. If it is one of the after work gatherings, I mostly have some small dish like the Obatzter and beer of course. If I am here for pure gourmet reasons, I would prefer one of the game dishes or in autumn one of the mushroom dishes (like in the main photo).

Opening hours:
during the week daily 11:30 to 14.00 and 17.00 to midnight and from 11:30 to midnight on weekends;
during Mai to September daily from 11:00 to 23.00.

Location of Zum Scheinheilgen beer garden on Google Maps.

© Ingrid D., tip date: December 2007, update August 2011 (new photos added, and price updates).

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If you are walking around the Art Nouveau centre of Mathildenhöhe and get hungry at a point in time, I can recommend the restaurant here, Café-Restaurant Mathildenhöhe. But note that it is a very elitist one (see photo 2), delicately decorated and many people are dressed accordingly (which means that I often feel out of place here – but the he**, the cakes are good and so are the coffees and who cares when I pay with the same money as everone else…).
They serve breakfast and this even at moderate prices (from 2,60 to 8,70 €), lunch with daily changes (for around 7,50 €) and of course coffee and cake.

In summer, the terrace is open, which is a very nice option too. And there they won’t give you this look when you are not “dressed accordingly”.

Opening hours: Tue-Sun: 10:00 – 19:00, during exhibitions until 21:00.
Opening hours of the summer terrace: Tue-Sat: 10.00 - 21.00.

Location of Café-Restaurant Mathildenhöhe restaurant on Google Maps.

© Ingrid D., tip date: December 2007, update June (new opening hours, obviously a new owner since the name of the café changed, new website).

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Update, February 2011: the restaurant is closed now. I leave the tip as it is since it might be still listed in guidebooks, but don't save or rate anymore.
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I would not recommend this restaurant for an evening’s dinner, unless you are a millionnaire. There are better options with better value in Darmstadt. But it serves nice lunch (they call it “Business Lunch” – capital letters) and is close to the train station so it it definitely an alternative to the several fast food places in or near German train stations.
Some of my colleagues (the “trendy” ones) go there quite often and were mostly satisfied, so when a customer of mine recently came for business by train, I have decided to try it out. It wasn’t easy in the beginning, as my customer lives gluten-free. When I called the restaurant to check their possibilities in glute-free dishes, I got the answer “oh yes, when the weather is nice, you can sit outside”. And I swear I didn’t speak any other language than German….. But we decided to give it a try and indeed the waiter knew what she was talking about when she asked for gluten-free meals. So we were happy to chose salad (for her) and pasta with chantarelles (for me) from the business lunch menu. They also had Bionade and they were able to make other than Apfelschorle (apple spritzer), so my customer had pineapple spritzer.

Favorite Dish: The meals tasted good, but.. it was not Italy, where once I was in food heaven. So I was satisfied but not overly. Given the prices of the dishes, I expected more. Now I am not a very critical person when it comes to restaurants (either I like the food or not), but in the case of Fürstenbahnhof, I found myself being extra critical because of their somehow arrogance self-conception.
The prices for their dinner options are definitely out of reach and interest for me, because I just don’t pay more than 15 Euro for a starter and between 20 and 30 Euro for the main course. Not in Germany! In Umbria yes, and now that I think about it I even paid less for the dishes at the marvellous, magnificent, excellent, wonderful Redibis in Bevagna. And Redibis was (is) a place with an excellent cook!
(haha, I am imagining what would happen if the owners of Fürstenbahnhof check the internet from time to time and find this… Would they even waste a thought and change their attitude or prices? No, I don’t think so).

We paid 29,60 € in total (8,90 € for the salad with chantarelles, 7,90 € for pasta with chantarelles including a small salad, 3,90 € for the pineapple spritz, 3,20 € for Bionade, 2,20 € for espresso and 3,50 € for Latte Macchiato).

I did chose "US$ 41 and up" and "most expensive" in the selection boxes, just to make sure that no reader mistakes our lunch prices as this restaurant's standard.

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Darmstadt’s Martinsviertel (Martin Quarter) is an area where many students and young families live. Consequently several cafes and small restaurants are located here which are lively, international and good places to meet and gather. That’s why we have decided to try out Bedouin on one of our recent girls’ evening. It was a good choice. The weather was great so we could sit outside and I was astonished that it wasn’t as loud as I would have expected it to be, given the location on a major but nevertheless small road (ok, the occasional idiot with deafening car stereo passed). The menu isn’t that extensive but it has something for everyone, provided one knows what is behind couscous and tabouleh. My two colleagues opted for the vegetarian Bedouin Teller (plate) with three different dishes and couscous (9,60 Euro) while I chose the plate with spinach on couscous (7,50 Euro). It was really delicious, especially since it was made with onions, garlic and cumin. We could have got ingera bread instead of fork but... next time. The selection of drinks is bigger, especially with the several lime-rum-ginger cocktails. We had Bionade (elderberry, 250 Euro for the bottle which is reasonable compared to other restaurants) and beer.
Conclusion: we will be back! The only downside is that they are not open during lunchtime. We would be back also for lunch break.

Opening hours: Monday – Saturday from 6 p.m. on, warm dishes until 10 p.m.

Directions:
From Luisenplatz take street car 7/8 until station “Pallaswiesenstrasse” (2nd after Luisenplatz) and walk into Pallaswiesenstrasse (to your right). It is at the second next corner.

Location of Bedouin on Google Maps.

© Ingrid D., April 2011 (just in case, RickS or others come along and think they can steal texts).

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Well, originally, Cubana was on my list to write about as excellent Mexican food, burrito style like. But… I just was there again in summer 2006, as I liked the food and I was badly disappointed. They must have changed the cook or the directives of ingredients or what so ever, the Rellenos (as they call the Burrito style food) were not as good as they used to be – more of a kind of “plastic food” (my description for ingredients, which come from cans rather than freshly made).

My photos are from Feb 2006, when I liked the food.

The interior is nice, a bit overdone, but fits to the Latin colourful world. A bit can be seen on their website, which does not show menus, but panorama pictures (look for the virtual tour).

Since recently, they also have tables and seats in the patio, where it is even a bit more quiet than inside.

Favorite Dish:
It is still a good place to get some cocktails, they serve all kinds of cocktails, have around 30 different ones on their menu. Also, they have a big selection of rum, and offer all possible rum cocktails as well. As the name tells, Cuban and other typical Latin American drinks as well. Mojito is good, Pisco is not as good as I used to have it in Chile.

Of course, beer as well, draft and bottles, Corona is not missed :-)

Food selection: the mentioned Rellenos, but well, on this day in June, both we had were not good. They also have pizzas, several pastas and a big selection of tapas. All comes with salad, as seen on the pics.

Prices are about average for Darmstadt. Rellenos e.g. are 5-8 Euros. Cocktails, depending of the ingredients, from 6 Euro up to 9 Euro.
The prices are of summer 2006, and I haven’t been there since.

Location of Cubana restaurant on Google Maps.

© Ingrid D., tip date: June 2006.

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As far as I know, this is the only Tapas Bar in Darmstadt.

The restaurant itself is nicely decorated with Spanish type ceramic bowls and posters, a bit dark, but it is a bar... (sorry, no interior pictures yet - I am still a bit too shy to take pics inside of restaurants - lool)

They offer only tapas (the spanish type appetizers), however a bit bigger size than tapas are offered usually in Spain.
Approx. 20 cold and 40 warm tapas are on the menu, plus different types of beer, including San Miguel.
Spanish wines as well, by the glass (0,2 l) or the bottle.

Fresh bread is served as a starter, together with olives and a very yummie garlic mayonnaise :-)


Favorite Dish: We had:
mussels marinara, very hot and spicy (5 mussels) - 3,50 Euro,
chicken breast in sherry sauce (very sherry :-) - 3,50 Euro,
tomato salad with anchovies and onions - 3,30 Euro.

Selection was a bit difficult, as they all sounded good - cold mussels in garlic-vinaigrette as well, or Spanish sausage chorizo, empanadas etc.
More or less per tapa between 3 and 3,50 Euro.

And the drinks:
wheat beer (0,5 l) - 2,60
San Miguel (0,33 l) - 2,00
German beer (0,33 l) was cheaper than San Miguel;

Coffee is around 1,60 - 250 Euro, depends on what you take, soft drinks around 1,60 Euro for 0,3 l.

(Prices and my experience are as of November 2005; I didn't visit this restaurant since then. No website as of February 2008).

Location of El Cid restautant on Google Maps.

© Ingrid D., tip date: November 2005.

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This small Indian-Pakistani restaurant is run by a Pakistan family (who own another, called "Lahore Palace" in Darmstadt).
However, this one is my favourite, as it is quietly located and you most of the time find parking space. The interior is not much overloaded and simply decorated (but I like that, as it doesn’t distract from eating). There is a small vase with a flower on each table and as soon as you seat yourself, you’ll get some appetizers.

Opening hours: Mon-Sun, 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. & 6:00 p.m. - 23:30 p.m.
Not that they don’t have closing days!

Favorite Dish: They have all kinds of dishes, tandoori style, mild style, madras; vegetarian, seafood, lamb, chicken and beef.
The lassies are excellent (salty, mango and sweet).
Usually I have vindaloo chicken (real vindaloo), several pakoras, raita and nan bread. But quite often also vegetarian meals, like cauliflower, ocra or potatoes.
All in all I don't pay more than 18 € for all dishes and drinks (and oh boy, I can drink lassies... often I have 2-3 minimum).

If you like indian - it should be your first choice in Darmstadt.

They have an English website since recently, with all dishes listed.

Location of Shalimar restaurant on Google Maps.

© Ingrid D., tip date: September 2004.