Food & Drink – Leipzig

In addition to hosting the world's oldest trade fair and being the city with the proudest musical history after Vienna, Leipzig is also a paradise for gourmets. For centuries, locals and their guests have enjoyed a host of culinary specialities ranging from the "Scheelchen Heeßen" (coffee, the Saxon national drink) and the vegetable dish "Leipziger Allerlei" to "Leipziger Lerche" cakes and "Leipziger Gose", a unique type of beer. Leipzig's traditional restaurants, modern bars and cosy cafés are great places to enjoy an excellent meal, a good chat, a cup of coffee, or simply to watch the world go by. The information here will help you find out exactly what specialities are typical of Leipzig and how they developed. You'll be surprised to see how many there are!

The colourful dish named after the city: "Leipziger Allerlei"

Leipzig's best-known speciality is "Leipziger Allerlei", which is based on fresh vegetables, and became especially well-known in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, the origin of this dish is unknown. In around 1900 it was simply known in Leipzig as "Allerlei", which can be translated as "pot-pourri" or "all sorts". It only seems to have acquired its epithet "Leipzig" when it was finally included in various cookery books. According to old recipes, "Leipziger Allerlei" contains not only a diverse selection of young vegetables such as carrots, kohlrabi, cauliflower and asparagus, but also morels (a type of mushroom), crayfish tails and flour dumplings. Original "Leipziger Allerlei" is served in June when the asparagus season has begun, the close season for crayfish is over, and the vegetables have just been freshly harvested.

From songbird to popular cake: The "Leipziger Lerche"

One special treat in Leipzig is the "Leipziger Lerche", which translates as the "Leipzig Lark". Along with "Leipziger Allerlei" it, too, found its way onto international menus in the 18th and 19th centuries. Visitors to Leipzig shouldn't miss this typical Leipzig cake, which originally emerged from a decadent taste for a nowadays unusual type of poultry. For believe it or not, the skylark was actually a Leipzig culinary speciality back in the 18th century. September, October and November, when the skylarks stopped off while migrating south on the flats between the Elbe and Saale rivers, was the best time of the year for bird-catchers. Some 1.5 million of these songbirds were trapped on Leipzig's floodplains every year, cooked with herbs and eggs, and served with sauerkraut or wrapped in bacon fat by "Lerchenfrauen" ("lark women") on Salzgässchen. Cookery books published between 1712 and 1850 contained the most amazing recipes such as arched breast of lark with truffle or lark on a skewer. Not even the brutal instructions for cooking skylarks put gourmets off.

The Gose is to beer as the rose is to flowers: "Leipziger Gose"

"What's to fear from a glass of beer?" as the saying goes – especially when we're talking about an outstanding Leipzig beer speciality, Gose beer. Gose is a tangy top-fermented beer containing 4.5% alcohol by volume. Originally Gose had nothing to do with Leipzig. The name came from the Gose, a stream flowing through the town of Goslar. Prince Leopold I of Dessau, known as the "Old Dessauer", was especially fond of Gose beer from Glauditz. When he visited Eutritzsch by Leipzig in 1738 he was so disappointed by Leipzig beer that he promised the local innkeeper to release him from the obligation to serve beer produced in Leipzig. The landlord soon took delivery of the first Gose beer from Glauditz, making his tavern the first "Gosenschänke" ("Gose inn") in the Leipzig district. Gradually Gose became the main Leipzig beer. The "Ohne Bedenken" Gose inn founded by the Cajeris family at Menckestraße 5, Leipzig, became especially well-known. It was reopened in 1986 after extensive refurbishment and is now the only Gose inn to still be in existence at its original address. The reopening of the "Ohne Bedenken" was responsible for the resurgence of Gose beer, which had been forgotten since World War II. In the year 2000, a new Gose brewery and inn was opened at Bayerischer Bahnhof (Bavarian Station) in Leipzig, and sales of Gose already far exceed expectations. In addition to its refreshing qualities, many people swear by Gose as an aphrodisiac.