I recently got an inquiry about when I was going to post my eatings around Germany. In response to that, here’s one now.
This restaurant was at the top of my list of places to eat in Nuremburg, and I was lucky enough to snag a last minute reservation. I was supposed to eat here with a friend who was meeting me in the city, but after checking the restaurant’s calendar, it turned out that they were closed the entire week except for the day I landed. I quickly threw my luggage in my hotel room, booked an online reservation for 1, shook off my jet-lag, and headed to the restaurant to have dinner at 3pm in the afternoon (it was the only time available).
This restaurant is unique because it is a robotic restaurant. They do not have waiters serving you, and everything is done through computers and machines. 's Baggers in Nuremburg Germany gives a whole new meaning to the word 'service', and this restaurant resembles a life-size pinball machine. I had a very delightful meal here, and I'm excited to share my experience with you.
‘s Baggers had an English version of their website, so I didn’t even think twice about the language barrier. However, I should have taken a cue when the online reservations page was only in German (thank you Google Translator). When I got to my table, the touch screen menu was 95% German...blast, how am I going to eat I thought to myself? Luckily, the restaurant seating was communal, and the German family beside me was kind enough to adopt me as their second child for the afternoon.
I was given a quick tutorial (in broken English, and lots of hand actions) on how the restaurant worked, and how to navigate through the menu. Here’s a photo of what the touch screen menu looks like:
Before being seated at your table, you are given a credit card type card, where your order information is stored. Once your card is inserted into the touch screen, you can begin to place your order by selecting your drinks, mains, sides, and desserts.
Each menu item will have a picture of what the food looks like, and if you want, you can zoom in the photo to have a closer look.
They also provide the ability to search for a particular type of food if you know what you want. This saves searching through the entire (and long) menu to find what you are looking for.
Remember not to order everything at once because as soon as you place your order, the food will be prepared right away. Before you know it, your order will come flying down the metal spiral centerpiece. Luckily, I was warned of this early enough, and placed my dessert order after I finished my meal.
Is it confusing, you ask? Not at all. Everything is color coded, and the system is designed such that it is easy to identify what food is yours. Each seat has a color and number. Before placing your order, you will need to identify on the touch screen your seat color and number. Each pot of food that flies down to your table will have mitts corresponding to your seat color. It’s that simple.
My seat was the black eight ball:
When you receive your food, you will also receive a little sticker that shows the time your order was placed, and the Chef that prepared your dish. I found that the whole system was designed and organized well.
Now that you get the gist of things, here’s what I ordered:
One thing I noticed is that Germans love to mix their drinks with water. On the plane, someone ordered wine mixed with water. When I was with my friend, she kept mixing her Coke with water. At ‘s Baggers, my adopted family recommended apple juice with water. What I didn’t realize was that they would mix their drinks with soda water, and not still water. So that was my drink, an Apfelschorle: apple juice mixed with soda water.
For my main, I ordered an Angus beef goulash with hot peppers & tagliatelle. This dish was incredibly delicious, and I was pleasantly surprised at how fresh everything tasted.
My dessert was a banana with vanilla ice cream, chocolate, and whipped cream. This, too, was excellent. The banana was covered with a hard crunchy batter that was either deep fried or baked. It was incredibly light and not oily at all.
At the end of the meal, you place your dirty dishes in the compartment in front of you, and someone will come remove them. Ok, so the restaurant is not entirely robotic, but close enough.
Overall, the food was amazing, and the restaurant was a lot of fun to eat at. The food came out fairly quickly, and it was about a 10 minute wait for my main course.
At the end of the meal, you can rate your food by giving it a max of 5 stars. The ratings will be used as feedback to the Chefs, and also allow people to search for the most popular dishes.
‘s Baggers use a lot of organic ingredients, and ensures that their food is sourced from local farms.
The restaurant is a little out of the way, being tucked in the middle of an Industrial park about 20-25 minutes away from the city center. A cab ride could get expensive.
I’ll leave you with a video, showing how the food is delivered to your table (this is really cool):
Am Steinacher Kreuz 28
Nuremburg, Germany
Telephone: 0911 / 477 90 90
6 comments:
That looks pretty cool. Too bad I won't be going to Germany any time soon.
those wacky Germans..... craziness. well i guess you don't have to leave a tip then, huh?
This place looks so awesome. I LOVE robots! I had robot delivered ice cream when I visited the Olympic Park in Germany. It played a little song while it dispensed soft serve to me. I used to have a video of it, but I think it disappeared with the death of my laptop. Sad.
Wow, this restaurant looks amazing. Do you know how long is their waiting list? Does it takes weeks of advance booking to get a table at normal dinner hour?
veggie mudbug,
No tipping required, it was great!
Jenny T,
This place was very cool. The robot delivering ice cream sound neat too. I have a lot of respect for German Engineering.
Alfie,
I don't think it takes weeks to get a reservation...a few days would do. The main reason for this is because they don't open every day, and each week has a different schedule. They do state on their website that reservations are necessary.
What a great find and great post. But I wouldn't worry about that German menu thingy: that was dialect on top of standard German. Poor you!
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