Have you cooked in a 1 star Michelin kitchen? Well I have...read on...

Bulow Palais...home away from home...I have perhaps stayed at this Relais & Chateaux hotel more than 20 times over the last 10 years...previously at the Residenz, as smaller, boutique hotel, and now at the larger Palais. The restaurant Carousel, previously helmed by Stefan Hermann, and now by the able Dirk Schroer, has earned and retained its Michelin star for many years....as long as I remember.

Anyway, after countless times experiencing the cusine here, this time, I returned to the kitchen...did I say kitchen? Yes, to prepare our own meal:



A "Drei Gang" three course, menu...complex French techniques...were we up to the task?

To relax my group...I lead a group of collectors to the Lange manufactory once every 2 years, we had some champagne at the bar...



Then, a breifing by the chef and sous chef



And we go!



Cutting potatos, Russian style. Note swiftness of Dmitry's handling of the sword...um...knife.

And me? Of course I was up to the task...Chef handed me two large black truffles...wow!



And how did I do...of course, well...



Unlike many other kitchen experiences, we were in the actual 1 Starred Michelin kitchen...not some instructional kitchen. And we actually prepared the food, including the more complicated and delicate processes like browning the beef:



closeup:



No one was spared. Even Lange's CEO Wilhelm Schmidt did his time in the kitchen.

Interestingly, chef Schroer does not use open flames in the kitchen. Only induction heaters...cooler, he says...sous vide machines, and ovens.

When the cooking was done, it came time for tasting...but first the welcome by Wilhelm



And the meal:

An amuse bouche which we did not prepare...hmm, maybe he does not trust us with this...



Soup



We prepared and mashed the pumpkin, cooked it. Prepared the chicken. Taste? delicious...what else do you expect from a 1 star Michelin kitchen?

The main course, complicated recipe...but we did well...pat on our backs...



The puff pastry was perfect...light, crisp. The spinach wrap wonderful. And the meat, as you can see, seared nicely, but medium rare within. My gosh we were good! I asked the chef if he would give us jobs as sous chef...his response was this.

We still had dessert to go...tarte tartin with vanilla ice cream



Superb experience. Wonderful dinner.


Restaurant Carousel
Bulow Palais
Dresden, Germany