For all intents and purposes "the" destination meal of a trip to Germany, Victor's Fine Dining by…read moreChristian Bau will forever be remembered as the second Michelin 3* Restaurant walked out of, nearly four hours after sitting down and still with several plates to go as the staff largely ignored the solo American in favor of tables speaking German. 26 minutes *average* between courses, including Amuse and Course 1. Guest inquiries about technique or ingredients met by "I don't know" or "I'll find out" with no answer. Empty plates lingering on the table for nine minutes in a room with 1:3 ratio of servers to diners. Same scene repeated every course, such that kitchen could would never know if one table could benefit from faster pacing. And to cap it off, an e-mail to the restaurant explaining the issues entirely ignored. No matter how good the Food, and yes the Langoustine was stunning, there is simply no excuse for an experience so poor, and particularly not at this level or a cost of over 200€ after a quarter was sliced of the total for items skipped en route to better Restaurants.

Let's get one thing out of the way: the food here is very nice; one of the most interesting of…read moreGermany. However my experience there was ruined by exceptionally poor service. Here is what happened. My group was seated in a private alcove away from the main dining room. I noticed that there was a note on the table asking guests not to use cameras and flash. I asked our waiter whether they forbid guests to use cameras or take pictures with flash and I was told that as long as I did not use flash I was ok. The dinner went on and I took pictures with my compact camera. We were coming towards the end of dinner and as I was taking a picture of my dish, Daniel Kiowski, the sommelier, admonished me for using a camera, which has been on the table since I arrived. I explained to him that I was told I could by one of his colleagues. He asked which one. A few minutes later he came back and explained that the waiter I talked to was new and did not know what he was talking about. He then went on to giving me the reasons why the restaurant did not allow cameras: they were too big, people requested the light to be changed or they disturbed other guests. All of which he admitted I was not doing. I would totally understand his position had I not checked with the staff prior to taking pictures or I was bothering other guests. But here I was misinformed by the staff. I was in a separate room just among my friends annoying no one. We were nearing the end of the dinner. I have no idea why Mr Kiowski preferred to stick to his policy over customer satisfaction and letting the thing go. I have been to a lot of fine dining restaurants and this is the first time the waiting staff did not put the customer first. How do we say the customer is always right in German? I did complain back then to Yildiz Bau, the wife of the Chef, who was running the restaurant. She listened to me and just walked away. I was baffled by her carelessness. I recently shared this experience with Christian Bau and took a picture of his reply that I am posting. Obviously Chef Bau seems not too concerned about customer complaints and think they must come from bad customers. I expect this attitude from a corner restaurant but not a Michelin 3 star one.