ZEIK Hamburg - Maurizo Oster
Star Chef Maurizio Oster / Collage and photography © Oliver Schwarzwald
Ingeniously celery
With the clear goal of establishing his culinary style, Maurizio Oster took over the ZEIK restaurant in Hamburg from Axel Henkel in 2018. Henkel, cooking legend and long-time partner of Werner Hennsler, retired from the business to, in his own words, „make room for the young, creative generation of chefs with fresh ideas". Since then, Maurizio has been uncompromisingly pursuing his vision. In the beginning, he was "not able to please all the regulars", as he says. But he could get over the loss. With his easy-going and friendly manner and the relaxed atmosphere in the guest room, paired with his excellent cuisine, the team was able to win over a new audience. As a logical consequence, Zeik was awarded a Michelin star in 2022, as well as the Rolling Pin Award for Newcomer of the Year.
The restaurant’s manifesto states, among other things: “We look for the best product, but stay on the northern German carpet as far as possible. We prefer to look for something special in an onion and coax the best flavours out of a kale. We love star cuisine in Hamburg, but like it relaxed and easy-going. We are northerners, burn for our homeland and its producers, remain modest, but still have the highest standards. Our service and the lovingly selected products of Maurizio Oster’s culinary creations form the foundation of our gastronomic philosophy”.
The only thing left to add is the passion for non-alcoholic menu accompaniments. This is no longer an exception, especially in upscale gastronomy, but it is still not a matter of course. At Zeik, the non-alcoholic drinks are mostly produced “in house” by the laid-back somme-lier team. The selection ranges from fruit and vegetable juices and extracts to kombucha and kefir-based drinks.
Homemade
At Zeik, the non-alcoholic drinks are mostly produced “in house”.
Photography © Oliver Schwarzwald
For the aperitif, we opted for a spiced orange juice topped with soda water and served with nutmeg blossom. The lettuce mousse with butter-milk ice cream and roasted onions was accompa-nied by buttermilk with garden herbs. For once, this is not produced in the kitchen, but comes from a North German organic farm. The ice cream surprised with a nice arc from light butter-milk acidity to strong vinegar acidity, poured on with an emulsion of buttermilk and chive oil. Perfectly balanced with plenty of room for many flavour nuances.
Then a flavourful slab of beetroot and cherry.
The beetroot dried and prickled into loops. Visually and technically high level. On the taste side, the staghorn plantain (german: Hirschhornwegerich) brought a surprising note and established again a nice reference to the region. The dish was accompanied by a drink made from sour cherry and some beetroot. The freshness of the sour cherry was clearly above the earthy notes of the beetroot. Which in turn were more noticeable in the drink than on the plate. A well-rounded experience.
The meat dish, which consisted of chicken breast and a square jelly from the chicken leg, was accompanied by the spiced orange juice we already knew from the beginning. If we had known that beforehand, we would have chosen the homemade ginger ale for the appetiser. The chicken was once again impressive with its exact shapes, handcrafted precision on the plate with fine and deep nuances of flavour. The jus from the chicken leg was pleasantly intensely meaty, accompanied by the ice cream from the chicken liver, extremely good!
Strawberry & Tomato
A simple extract of strawberry and tomato. The strong tomato aroma that was first in the nose was then replaced on the tongue by a strong strawberry.
Photography © Oliver Schwarzwald
Probably the most surprising drink came with the celery dish. A simple extract of strawberry and tomato. The strong tomato aroma that was first in the nose was then replaced on the tongue by a strong strawberry. A nice break to the celery sandwich of basted and pickled slices. This was accompanied by fermented celery roll with roasted celery mash, and pickled celery roll with mountain cheese cream. The celery ash is made from smoked celery. Smoking is only one of the many steps in the process to obtain the desired end product. Maurizio sees his philosophy embodied most clearly in this dish. Not only because he spent days tinkering with the sand-wich so that the individual slices combine so perfectly with one another, but also because so many facets of a supposedly simple vegetable are produced here. And what is more regional than a celery? Chapeau!
The Celery - Signature
Photography © Oliver Schwarzwald
The pre-dessert was a yogurt ice cream with soup vegetables that really blew me away.
The idea of combining the supposedly savoury vegetables in this way is bold, but the taste is more than convincing! For dessert we had black-berry mousse, roasted hemp cream, reduced buffalo milk ice cream with aniseed. The black-berry kefir was a very nice accompaniment. The acidity of the kefir supported the sweet blackberry juice poured onto the plate. Last but not least, there were petit fours of pumpkin. From a crocant with pumpkin cream to a praline with pumpkin puree to pumpkin jelly with chocolate garanche and pumpkin ice cream confectionery, there was just about everything that can be done with pumpkin at this level. Here, too, the manifesto cited earlier is clear in the regional reference, the search for something special in a product and the tireless passion to coax the best flavours out of it.
Rock on Maurizio!
Inside ZEIK
Topinambur, hazelnut, pear
Inside Zeik
kale, apple, rosehip