What a surprise!

Restaurant Magda Erfurt

In his Restaurant Magda outside the gates of Erfurt, André Radtke conjures up a four-course menu for the patrons in which everything fits together perfectly – tradition, regional ingredients and fresh new ideas. We have already sampled it...

Sometimes you know as soon as you arrive in a place that you do not want to leave. The Magdalenengut estate in Alach is one such place. It is a four-sided farmstead built in 1742 that has been carefully restored with a lot of attention to detail. Half-timbered buildings that are plastered with clay in the traditional way surround a charming courtyard. Grass springs up between the paving stones and soft pink climbing roses curve around the corners of the buildings, amongst lavender beds and fire bowls.

The Alach district of Erfurt, where we have come to eat, looks like a real Thuringian rural idyll with its streets, its old farmhouses and its flowering gardens. The chef at the Magdalenengut, André Radtke, is a dedicated, creative master of his craft. In the past, he has already cooked for international event catering and run a cooking school in Erfurt, before opening Restaurant Magda with his life partner in 2019. Since then, in the historic ambience of the restaurant, patrons have been able to smell miso and forest mushrooms, Earl Grey and game and in general the aroma of a cuisine that skilfully combines tradition and regional products with new ideas.

The dreamy Alach is now a destination for gourmands from the entire region. “Come in,” André welcomes us and shows us to our table. The Magda extends over two floors. The kitchen, bar and reception area are on the lower floor, and an old wooden staircase takes us up to the eating area. Creaking wooden floorboards, beige plastered clay walls and carefully restored ceiling beams create a cosy atmosphere. Wine glasses sparkle in a sideboard.

Our table is covered with a white tablecloth and is already laid with fresh bread and little pots of olive oil and whipped butter. What there isn’t is a menu. André serves a surprise menu, which he changes every four weeks. Four courses, with the accompanying wine on request. We are ready. Culinary surprises are – in our opinion anyway – always a fine thing if you don’t have any allergies or other intolerances. Allergies, says André, would naturally be taken into consideration. Ideally, the guests should communicate these when reserving the table. And reservations are recommended at Magda. There is space for a maximum of 18 guests inside. In the summer, up to 30 people can sit on the terrace. The Magda is not the kind of restaurant where you can spontaneously drop by after a bike ride. “The Magda is my living room,” says André. “People should feel at home and relax. They should be allowed to wear shorts and bring their children with them.”

Meanwhile, we are experiencing one pleasant surprise after another. Steak tartare made from German Wagyu beef is the first course. André has jazzed it up with wasabi and shiso sorbet, garlic crisps and an iridescent, orange-coloured passion fruit sauce with miso. This is followed by a chilled Gloria melon soup, so called because it comes from the Gloria market garden in Erfurt. This is served with goat’s cheese panna cotta and homemade mint oil. The mint was picked in Alach. “Regional and seasonal” is André’s philosophy. It means that he goes to the Alach Forest to look for cauliflower fungus, a mushroom he marinates in sweet and sour source. That he picks the wild garlic himself to make wild garlic pomace rolls. And that he mixes the elderberries from the garden into a sauce to be served with venison from the Thuringian Forest.

The final surprise is wild berry and chocolate cannelloni for dessert. And the news that we could stay the night in the Magdalenengut. The owners of the estate, Robby and Judith Possner, have set up five elegant guest rooms in the main house.

The advantage of staying the night would be that we could continue feasting at the tables under the weeping willow tomorrow. Because André also offers picnic baskets filled with pickled antipasti, strawberry and basil lemonade, salmon, vegetable sticks and much more. The picnic would bridge the time until dinner. After dinner, we could stay the night again. And so on.

Erfurt makes it easy for its inhabitants to cook with seasonal and regional products because the city is famous for its many market gardens. And these also use unusual areas of cultivated land, for example the city vegetable farm. Its fields and beds lie on former railway tracks at the Kontor building in Erfurt. Green tomatoes, white carrots or yellow cucumbers. There are also many traditional crop plants growing here. The vegetables are available in the farm shop and by subscription.