The Schweinshaxen at Bavarian Grill, a slow-roasted ham hock with caraway sauce, served with a dumpling and red cabbage. (Entree: Dallas)
Over the past 20 years, the coffee house has proven its durability as a mainstay through all aspects of American culture. It’s not uncommon to walk into any purveyor of hot coffee today and get a glimpse of a businesman with a bluetooth reading a newspaper next to a twenty-something tapping away on a Macbook. It’s a place where piercings and tattoos are no less common than starched collars and full windsors – where any demographic can feel at home, if only because every demographic needs coffee.
But while the coffee house works for Americans, there’s a German version that’s a little older. And a lot more fun.
A liter or Paulaner Salvator at Bavarian Grill (Entree: Dallas)
Called a biergarten, it’s a traditional gathering place for conversation, friendship, storytelling, and cold beer, often served a liter at a time. It’s inherently tied to German culture, and as such, Jürgen Mahneke knew that if he was going to have an authentic German Restaurant, he would have to have an authentic German Biergarten.
“It’s like a Starbucks,” he says, breaking into a small grin. “But with beer.”
To compare the Bavarian Grill to any coffee house is to draw a correlation to the conversation and universal appeal of each, though it does little justice to the festive and inviting environment Mahneke and his wife Elke (who passed away in 2011) spent nearly two decades creating. Yes, there is the biergarten, but that’s only half the restaurant – the other half is those for the diners who come more for the dining experience itself, which is reason enough to make the trek out to North Plano. Not limited to such stereotypical offerings as Bratwurst and Saurkraut, Mahneke insists that the fare at his restaurant be as Bavarian as possible. That means one will fine rouladen and spaetzle, schweinshaxe and schnitzle, and that’s only touching the surface of the restaurant’s menu, which has an insert with seasonal and other variable offerings.
“We serve authentic Bavarian food – and the key word there is authentic. There’s quite a few German restaurants who have Americanized their menus, and we really haven’t taken any shortcuts. We follow the ideas of what they call Modern German Cooking, so there’s not a lot of grease or heavy cream, but it’s all wholesome food that I’ve used in the recipes I’ve made over there myself,” says Mahneke in his thick German accent. “And you have seven different regions in Bavaria, so there are seven different cooking styles to begin with, which is enough for us. If we did all of Germany, it would water down our menu quite a bit.”
The Jaeger Schnitzel at Bavarian Grill (Entree: Dallas)
The menu, which has the (often tongue-tying) German names of the food with descriptions in English, includes a varied assortment of preparations and ingredients, for example the Garmischer Schweinshaxen mit Semmelknödel und Rotkraut (roasted pork ham hock on a caraway sauce with a bread dumpling and red cabbage) or the Frisch im Apfelholzrauch geräucherte Entenbrust mit Cumberland Sauce (thin slices of freshly house smoked, medium rare duck breast on lingonberry sauce with two cheesy potato pancakes). And of course they have rouladen – or, more specifically, Rinder Rouladen, which is a cut of beef rolled around a filling of bacon, onions, and a pickle spear before being given a slow-roasting treatment.
The most popular dish at the Bavarian Grill, though, is the schnitzel, a thinly cut piece of meat that is usually dipped in flour, egg wash, four and bread crumbs, fried and served with a sauce in particular, depending on what kind of schnitzel it is.
“Schnitzel is what we’re really well known for – and it can be from various cuts of meat – one of our core menu items is the pork schnitzel, but we have also used veal, turkey, chicken, venison, and wild boar, among others.” Says Mahneke, who adds that some variations include schnitzel stuffed with cheese or schnitzel that is more lightly breaded. “A lot of our customers who have never had schnitzel actually think it is a sausage, so when they get their plate they are pretty surprised – but positively surprised.”
The fare at Bavarian Grill is without question a focus of Mahneke’s, but he had no intention of letting the atmosphere play second fiddle. With live music every night in the dining room – often an accordionist playing traditional German tunes – waitresses in dirndls and waiters in leiderhosen and liters and half liters of (mostly) Bavarian beer at every table (not to mention the adornments on the walls and shelves), the Mahnekes left no stone unturned to provide their customers with an experience they might hope to have in Munich.
The German vegetable salad at Bavarian Grill (Entree: Dallas)
And, of course that includes the biergarten.
Festooned with banners proclaiming support of the Bayern Munich Football (soccer) team, the biergarten at the Bavarian Grill sports long, communal tables, mugs on the wall and a bar heavily laden with Bavarian beers. The TVs show soccer when it’s on, and other sports when it’s not. German swing bands come play for their biergarten audience on Saturdays, and customers laugh and chat away, drinking their beers a liter or half-liter at a time and choosing to mark it off their ‘Stein Club’ card – which earns the customer a Bavarian Grill Stein if they drink all the beers offered.
The biergarten at Bavarian Grill – or even in general, perhaps – is more than merely a coffee shop with beer. While the businessman and the twenty-something at Starbucks would be peacefully coexisting, there’s a feeling that here they would be actively conversing.
“During the day this is a more quiet area, but at nighttime you have people talking, exchanging stories and views of the world,” Mahneke says with a smile. “And then on Saturday night we have a band trying to take the roof off – last Saturday we had a German Dixieland Band play - Munich is the capitol of Dixieland Jazz in Germany – and the funny thing is they play the New Orleans music with German words. When people leave, they tell us they love it and can’t wait to come back.”
What Mahneke and Elke did in 1993 was not merely bring a Bavarian restaurant to Plano, but a truly Bavarian experience, be it the food, the music, the atmosphere or the beer and spirits. A trip to the dining room and a trip to the biergarten will yield two entirely different – if not equally enjoyable – experiences. The biergarten is unique to Bavarian culture, and the Bavarian Grill has a biergarten unique to Dallas. Here, it’s not a Starbucks with beer, because there’s not one on every corner.
But if there were, rest assured we’d be having a lot more fun.
