Schlachterbörse. If Hamburg had a dining room

There are places in Hamburg that need no fashion and no hype. They simply stand there, decade after decade, doing what they do so well that you keep coming back. The Schlachterbörse at Kampstraße 42 is such a place. From the outside a corner pub in the Schanzenviertel, right next to the old slaughterhouse. Inside dark wood, laid tables, a wall full of photos of guests from fifty years and a counter that makes you feel at home right away.

I have known Margit and Wolfgang Süße for more than 45 years. The two of them took over the rooms in the early seventies and turned the old trading exchange of 1904 into their restaurant. Wolfgang belongs to the founding generation of this house, and this summer he and I happened to meet again, both of us in the middle of getting our strength back. Some friendships rest for years and are instantly there again, as if no time had passed. Today Margit and her daughter Jasmin are the hosts of the house, and that is exactly what an evening there feels like: as if you were invited to friends who happen to cook wonderfully.

There were three of us, my husband Chris, my friend Gaby and me. To start, the traditional scampi that have been served here forever. Then roast beef with fried potatoes for me, the pork chop for Chris, the schnitzel for Gaby. The meat at the Schlachterbörse is aged for at least six weeks and comes from the neighbouring slaughterhouse. The steak is carved at the table on a wooden board, pink inside, with a browned crust, and a glass of red wine alongside. It needs no further staging, and that is precisely the art of it.

The small gestures are the loveliest part anyway. That evening Margit gave me roses, which stood in a glass on our table and came home with me. Moments like these cannot be planned or bought. They happen when a house is run by the same people for generations, people who know and like their guests.

If you want to go

If Hamburg had a dining room, it would be the Schlachterbörse. Open Monday to Saturday from 4 pm, closed on Sundays. Reservations are taken the old-fashioned way, by telephone only, at +49 40 436543. That, too, suits this house.

Diesen Beitrag auf Deutsch lesen: Schlachterbörse. Wenn Hamburg ein Esszimmer wäre

Why my brand carries my sister’s name is told in Why Trixi Gronau. Gifts and paper works from the atelier are available in the Concept Store.

Trixi Gronau has run her Concept Store in Hamburg with its own print atelier since 1995. In the nineties a regular at Susanne Otto (then the only Chanel address in Hamburg, Milchstraße), at Boutique Amica run by Ina Gärtner, and at Chippis Bazar run by Mary Burose. Invited to vernissages at Galerie Levy (Pop Art and Surrealism, Hamburg-Pöseldorf).

Warmly, from Hamburg