Die Bank Brasserie, Bar & Restaurant, Hamburg

...colleague stepped in and booked Die Bank and invited me along. Having been warned to watch the pennies, this wasn't a place I'd have dared book - so hoorah for Laurent who booked it regardless. We set off in two taxis - two Brits, two Americans and three French.

Die Bank is in the centre of Hamburg on Hohe Bleichen, and, as the name would suggest, it used to be a bank. Not your grotty little suburban sub-branch though; this was a grand ...
...staircase. Once upstairs you enter Die Bank and it's breath-taking. The room has a really high ceiling, enormous windows, a big bar stacked high (well beyond a level anyone could reach) with glittering bottles and glasses. There are pillars stretching high up to the ceiling and long sparkling chandeliers. The cloakroom is one of the bank's safes - a big thick doored room to hold your coats rather than banknotes and bullion. Another walk-in safe opposite ... more

On my latest trip to Hamburg I asked my boss if I should arrange a team night out and he said 'Sure, just don't pick anything too expensive'. Fortunately before I could scout around for something reasonably priced, another colleague stepped in and booked Die Bank and invited me along. Having been warned to watch the pennies, this wasn't a place I'd have dared book - so hoorah for Laurent who booked it regardless. We set off in two taxis - two Brits, two Americans and three French.

Die Bank is in the centre of Hamburg on Hohe Bleichen, and, as the name would suggest, it used to be a bank. Not your grotty little suburban sub-branch though; this was a grand city bank. From the outside there's little clue of what's inside, just a big doorway onto a lobby with a beautiful mosaic floor and a grand staircase. Once upstairs you enter Die Bank and it's breath-taking. The room has a really high ceiling, enormous windows, a big bar stacked high (well beyond a level anyone could reach) with glittering bottles and glasses. There are pillars stretching high up to the ceiling and long sparkling chandeliers. The cloakroom is one of the bank's safes - a big thick doored room to hold your coats rather than banknotes and bullion. Another walk-in safe opposite holds wine racks. The walls are decorated with giant black and white photographs of a strange looking chap in sunglasses. Some of the walls have been coated in either thinly beaten silver foil or possibly just a paint that looks like silver.

Looking around, the clientele did look like 'a bunch of bankers' - the dress code was spiked with plenty of white shirts with black pin-stripe suits. Not something you see that often in Germany where the dress code tends to be rather more casual. The guys at the table next to us didn't take their jackets off all evening. Our party of 7 included two check-flannel-shirted rotund Americans who were blissfully and unashamedly lowering the tone of the place.

A waiter took us to a table for eight with thick white tablecloths and lots of glasses. He brought the menus and offered us aperitifs - clearly spotting that we looked like an indecisive bunch he made plenty of suggestions. For a business dinner there's generally a pause of people checking out what everyone else is doing but since I resigned a few weeks back I'm a bit demob happy whilst I serve out my notice period so I dived in and asked for the cocktail of the day - a Raspberry Cosmpolitan - and next thing I knew, everyone else was ordering sherry, Campari, and in the case of the Yanks, glasses of red wine (conveniently accepting the waiter's suggestion of a Merlot). It's a funny thing that one of my colleagues commented on recently, in Germany there's not the same taboo about cocktails. Having a cocktail before dinner is quite acceptable for both men and women and most of our colleagues will happily tuck a few away when we have our annual business meeting. I think Del-boy Trotter and his folding umbrellas and Pina Coladas has done a lot to harm the image of cocktail drinking in the UK. The waiter trotted off leaving us with German menus and promising to return - eventually - with the English translation of half the menu but not the daily specials.

The menu is not too big and comes on just two pages. One page is the standard 'every day menu' and the other page has the same amount of space given over to the day's specials. Therefore you can be sure that the menu isn't long enough for anything to hang around the kitchen for too long. The menu of the day, however, is not translated but the waiter was really patient to explain anything that anyone couldn't understand. To be honest, the waiter was one of the best I've come across in Hamburg - full of suggestions, not too pushy and not too noticeable.

I've commented before that my skills in German stretch not much further than food and drink and locating the toilets or a railway station. But even my food fluency was challenged by this menu. Do you know the German for 'Ox cheek'? OK, some of you will but it's not exactly standard fare. The starters included foie gras, a mixed salad, a soup or two, a small risotto and various meaty things that I paid no attention to. To be honest the moment I saw Tuna Sashimi I didn't need to look much further. Main courses included some weird stuff like the Ox cheek, more livers (goose or calves), a variety of fish dishes and even 'start of the season' asparagus - mid March seemed really early for that. I ordered a dish of monk-fish (seeteufel - literally sea devil) with mixed vegetables and mashed potato. A couple of colleagues couldn't resist the cheeky dish, one had a mixed fish grill and another opted for the asparagus with schnitzel. There were some corking translations on the English menu - the soup with scum (i.e. foam) and another dish with the magical ingredient of 'shrimp spit' which I assume meant a skewer of prawns, although I preferred to think of all the little shrimps lining up to spit at the dish. There's also an 'Oyster-bar' and a whole section of the menu related to oysters if that's what takes your fancy.

From what I could decipher on the website and various other sources, the chef at Die Bank is a chap by the name of Fritz Schilling who has quite a reputation. I think that Die Bank doesn't have any big awards but Schilling previously had two Michelin stars in one of his other restaurant ventures. So you can get high-class food without paying the earth to get the stars.

Orders taken, the waiter brought baskets of bread. Now I am an unashamed bread-bore and I always have to have a good poke in the bread basket. In addition to more standard breads, there were chunks of grey rye bread shaped like chicken drumsticks. This meant each chunk had a long 'bone' of really crusty bread attached to a chunk of softer bread which was very tasty indeed. The bread was served with unsalted butter or a green cream dip.

Wine was ordered - we always leave that to the French so we can blame them if it's something awful. Everyone else wanted red so the boss picked a Burgundy of some kind and I took a glass of white, choosing the only one on the list that I'd never heard of. It's as good a way to choose as any other!

When the starters arrived I was thrilled with my choice. Rather than regular looking chunks of sashimi (raw tuna) this would actually have been more accurately described as tuna carpacio - ultrathin slices of fine tuna that covered the plate. On top of the tuna was a thick and slightly sticky sauce of soy sauce with sesame seeds but the stroke of genius was in the accompaniment which looked like a little pile of tagliatelle but was actually long narrow strips of cucumber in a wasabi cream dressing. I adore wasabi and this way of diluting its impact with a cream sauce and combining it with cool crunchy strips of cucumber was inspired. The three of us with the tuna all coo-ed and ah-ed through our starters.

Main courses appeared five to ten minutes after the starters had been cleared and everyone seemed very pleased with what they'd chosen. My friend Ludo said the schnitzel he had with his asparagus was the best he'd ever eaten and since he lived in Germany for several years, I think he'd eaten more than a few. The ox cheek was apparently 'very tasty' and I was pleased, if not ecstatically excited, with my monk-fish. This came as a large piece about an inch thick, cut through the central bone and about 5 inches across. I like good monk-fish although sometimes it can be a bit of a gamble and in cheaper restaurants it seems more common to get poor monk-fish these days - especially in fishy stews where it can be a bit too rubbery and a tad smelly. This was a proper 'steak' of monkfish and served very plain which was a nice change. The mashed potatoes were ultra-smooth and not too creamy and the vegetables were finely sliced and mixed together in a light provencal (i.e. tomato!) sauce.

The prices aren't cheap. My starter alone was €16 and the main course close to €28. There were a few cheaper options but this isn't a place to go on a tight budget. I don't know what the bill for the seven of us came to but the boss looked relieved that the group hadn't been bigger!

Die Bank is open every day - from Monday to Saturday from 11.30 until 'whenever' - literally the website says 'open ended'. I guess they close when everyone has gone and there's no more money to be extracted from the clientele. Sundays they are open from 5 pm to 'whenever'. Hopefully all those serious bankers will guzzle their oysters and head off home before it gets too late.

If you have deep pockets or can wangle an invitation at someone else's expense, I really would recommend Die Bank. Otherwise you might need to chat with your bank manager and arrange a loan!

Die Bank Brasserie, Bar and Restaurant
Hohe Bleichen 17 - 20354 Hamburg (City)
Tel.: 040 23 800 30 

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