Catherine, François, Anne Golla © GP
A meal with the Gollas in Niederschaeffolsheim? Always a pleasure and a celebration. The Michelin may well ignore the residence which is well worth the star, but it easily fills the lunchtime and evening with a joyful and gourmet clientele who come here to taste the great ideas of the moment. The generosity of gourmet Alsace: this is the message orchestrated by François, the chef, who worked at Bernard Loiseau in Saulieu, Guy Savoy in Paris, but also Alain Ducasse and Christian Morisset at Juana in Juan-les-Pins and who knows music, playing classical and modern, with equal ease. Near Haguenau and Brumath, in a corner of the road that leads to Karlsruhe and the Palatinate, it embodies the fifth generation of innkeepers – since 1888! – working to welcome the gourmet traveler who comes here to find sustenance with a change of scenery.
Chanterelles, trumpets of death and porcini oil © GP
There are around fifteen rooms, modern or classic, plus six suites dedicated to Alsatians who forced their destiny, from the conductor Charles Munch to the Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer, from the guitarist Bireli Lagrène to the designer Tomi Ungerer, from singer Germain Muller to mime Marcel Marceau. You can sleep there after having feasted, because what is served here encourages meditation as well as a meditative break. In the vast room under a wooden ceiling, seated on ultra-comfortable seats with well-covered tables, you are ready to taste the great ideas of the moment that follow the season and the arrivals.
Goose foie gras opera, porcini mushroom gel and powder © GP
The appetizer, with its variation of potato, salad, cappuccino and truffle, ice cream and leek, opaline with porcini oil, is already a great introduction – rustic, but chic, tasty and generous – to what is served here. Thus, the mushrooms (chanterelles, trumpets of death and porcini oil), the black truffle galette with leek vinaigrette, the exquisite and now traditional opera of goose foie gras, with gel and porcini powder with its “walk in the forest of Haguenau” or these caramelized “scorsonères” (the scientific name of salsify), with chestnuts and hazelnuts, white truffle foam d’Alba which constitute convincing successes.
Truffle and leek galette © GP
The dish not to be missed at the moment? The smoked eel fillet, with snow and golden thread sauerkraut gel, which concentrates all the tastes (between smoked and nicely acidic cabbage) of traditional Alsace. We add the potato with porcini powder and the tuberous chervil with the knepfle with truffles, vegetable stew quenelle of red cabbages which sits on the menu called “vegetable pearls” which tours the regional gardens and undergrowth. But the hare terrine on toast, a prelude to the hare à la royale in the Ali Bab cake version with the offal and the blood of the animal and the senator version Couteaux en filaments and Parmentier are also beautiful things – even if a bit Overcooking here and too much salt there can dampen the enthusiasm of the demanding gourmet.
Royal hare © GP
There is still the farmhouse munster with its munster ice cream, zabaglione of fried potatoes, meringues salted with cumin, gewurztraminer gel presented covered in its traditional fir box, Tatin-style quinces, in sorbet with blackberries and mousse with pepper with timut or apple tart with streussel ice cream, green apple foam. On top of that, Anne, the chef’s sister, offers you the lovely wines of the moment, such as the so-called “delicate” muscat 2023 from Fleck in Soulzmatt, gewurztraminer Ostenberg 2021 made from magnum from Loew in Westhoffen, and even noble pinot black H now grand cru (on Hengst) 2017 from Paul Buecher in Wettolsheim, worthy of a beautiful Vosne Romanée came. A very beautiful table to which Catherine’s smile gives the “la” of a perfect welcome.
Apple pie with streussel ice cream © GP
