Cafe Ambiente, Bremen

I go to Bremen frequently and have visited this restaurant twice and know I'll be taken there again as it's a favourite of one of my contacts in the city. Whilst this review refers to my first visit in spring 2009, the second was every bit as good and it does seem to be a very dependable choice if you are in the area.

I knew it was going to be one of those days when I'd have to eat out for both lunch and dinner so I took precautions ...
...was no way I'd be able to do justice to three restaurant meals in one day and breakfast was the easiest one to sacrifice.

Luckily I'd had prior warning that my morning visit was likely to last well into the afternoon and lunch would be offered. I was visiting an agency we use in a lovely up-market residential area of Bremen and sure enough, at around 1pm when the growls from the stomachs of my two interlocutors - Uwe and Joerg - started ... more

I go to Bremen frequently and have visited this restaurant twice and know I'll be taken there again as it's a favourite of one of my contacts in the city. Whilst this review refers to my first visit in spring 2009, the second was every bit as good and it does seem to be a very dependable choice if you are in the area.

I knew it was going to be one of those days when I'd have to eat out for both lunch and dinner so I took precautions and skipped breakfast at the hotel. I knew that there was no way I'd be able to do justice to three restaurant meals in one day and breakfast was the easiest one to sacrifice.

Luckily I'd had prior warning that my morning visit was likely to last well into the afternoon and lunch would be offered. I was visiting an agency we use in a lovely up-market residential area of Bremen and sure enough, at around 1pm when the growls from the stomachs of my two interlocutors - Uwe and Joerg - started to intrude on the conversation, we decided we could go on no longer without something to eat.

We hopped into the car and drove for about 5 minutes, passing an area that was clearly popular with fans of the city's football team, Werder Bremen. Sure enough, the restaurant we were heading for was within view of the stadium. From the road side, the restaurant was an unremarkable looking place. But once inside we headed down a circular staircase to a large semi-circular dining room with an even larger glass enclosed terrace. With an abundance of big green plants spread through the area it was a lot like eating in a greenhouse. My companions zeroed in on a table near the windows and since the weather was beautiful we rushed over to grab it. We were definitely lucky on the weather front; less than 24 hours later, Bremen was under 2 inches of snow.

Our table was to the end of the arc of the semi-circle so the views weren't as great as they might have been nearer the middle but we could see lush green parkland leading down to a rather swollen river. I assume this is the river Weser on which Bremen stands and checking the maps, it seems to be a point in the river where it splits to either side of a small river-island. Dogs were cavorting in the water where it had flooded onto the grass and young mums were pushing kids along the riverside in strollers.

A very jolly waitress bounced up towards us, apologising that she was wearing 'really loud shoes', and presented us with thick menus. Over half of the menu contents were drinks so I guess it's a popular watering hole in the evenings. There was a 'menu of the month' as well as a blackboard with the day's specials although we didn't spot the board until we'd already settled on our choices.

As we checked out the menu, Uwe explained that the building was designed by "an important famous architect whose name I can never remember but it's something to do with the Bauhaus". Fair enough he could have made up a name and I wouldn't have challenged him because it's not an architectural movement I know much about. The original building dated to the 1920s but it was pretty much overwhelmed by the size of the conservatory that was built much later and contained a lot more tables than the old zone of the restaurant. Even the conservatory was dwarfed by the size of the outside terrace. Warm it might have been but not warm enough for even two Germans and a Brit to want to sit outside quite so early in the year.

After some debate we'd all chosen our meals. I ordered a salmon tagliolini, Uwe took a salmon dish and Joerg some osso bucco. To stop our stomachs drowning out the reverberation of the waitress's shoes, we ordered two portions of bruschetta to share as starters. Two was clearly more than enough since when it arrived, the plates were enormous with each one having half a dozen slices of bread, lavishly topped with a mountain of chopped tomatoes and basil.

The problem of eating with people who work in the food business (however tangentially) is that we can't eat without talking about eating. In this case we all got stuck into a discussion about the brushcetta just as much as we got stuck into the dish itself. Uwe was clearly a bit of a bruschetta specialist and pronounced that he'd done a lot of research into the dish and learned that you should NEVER use chopped onions. So a big tick in the box for Ambiente as there were no onions in theirs. Next we discussed how it could be that the dish smelled so garlicky but we couldn't find any garlic pieces. We concluded it must be garlic infused olive oil; another tick in the box for that. The tomato chunks were large and juicy and the chopped basil was well distributed. The only thing that let the dish down was the bread - "this morning's left over breakfast rolls" said Joerg.

Main courses came at a suitable interval after the plates had been cleared. Perhaps I should have thought more carefully about my choice or asked a few questions about precisely what a lobster sauce would be. As a result my dish was a bit too rich and creamy for my liking though I polished it off like a good girl. The pasta was cooked perfectly and the chunks of salmon were of a size that showed they hadn't just used the dish as a way of dealing with the left-overs. I generally put a lot of vegetables in everything I cook and the total absence of anything green or from the vegetable kingdom made the dish a bit heavy. I'd have preferred a tomato-based sauce but what I had was pleasant enough.

The others received their main dishes on large plates and each got a second large plate or dish of vegetables to go with their meat or fish. In fact the dishes were too much for our small square table and started to make incursions on the tables to either side. By this time the 'greenhouse effect' of the conservatory was really kicking in and we were all sweltering in the March sunshine.

The bill for three people based on two starters, one pasta, two main courses, two bottles of water and a couple of apfelschorles was about 60 Euros. Not cheap for lunch but a reasonable price for the quality of food we received. The service was pleasant and friendly without getting pushy and I could understand why this is one of Joerg and Uwe's favourite places to take clients for lunch. I wondered if I'd be able to wheedle an invitation again soon and made a mental note to always book meetings with them in the late morning to maximise my chances of being invited back. 

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