Comforting German dishes display eatery’s potential
Juergens German Bakery & Restaurant is gone, but its spirit lives on — and in the same location — through the German cuisine served in the recently opened Alpine Restaurant and Bar.
While hardly perfect, the lively and festive Alpine — which is attached to El Lugar Tapas Bar & Restaurant, a sibling business — has plenty going for it. As mentioned, it occupies the handsome vintage German Village building that previously housed Juergens, which closed last year after serving Columbus for about half a century.
A few updates have spruced up that space, but they haven’t detracted from its classic character. The warm glow of excellent lighting gently illuminates plenty of wood, bay windows, stout brick walls, simple wooden tables with padded chairs and a bustling bar.
Alpine offers a nice selection of German draft beers, and they’re great matches for the hearty fare. If you’d like a cocktail, the “Ey, Scotty Boy” ($13) — a pleasant concoction made with apple cider, citrus and allspice that was highly recommended by a bartender — is served with a singed apple slice and a bit of pyrotechnic flair. I only wish it had enough Johnny Walker Black Label scotch in it to offset its sweetness.
There are other things I wish had been different, especially during one visit when an understaffed and slammed Alpine was having an off night.
Chief among these are sitting at a table for a painfully long time before having to flag over a server to start taking my order, then waiting longer than that for soup that would never arrive and for an entree that would be delivered to the wrong table while I waited longer still for a replacement. This chaotic meal ended with management handling the exasperating gaffes with The goulash with spaetzle and a pint of beer at Alpine Alpine Restaurant & Bar
grace and largesse.
Most of the food I sampled was comforting and good, if somewhat pricey. The goulash ($19) — tender beef tips in a rich and tangy, paprika-tinged sauce served over sturdy house spaetzle — is a dish sure to help diners deal with the winter’s chill.
Ditto for the huge schnitzels ($19), even if I’d prefer them crisper, less bready and less dependent on sauces for flavor. Still, I enjoyed the sauces, which include the creamy-yet-tangy “Alpine,” fortified with mushrooms; the tomatoey “Gypsy,” accented with red
peppers and onion; and the “Holstein Art,” brightened by lemon and capers. Chicken, pork and veal schnitzels are offered to pair with these sauces; if you pick the veal and Holstein Art, you’ll get something that tastes like a solid veal piccata.
Alpine’s hefty house sausages are also built for comfort. Available in a crowd-pleasing platter (wurstteller, $20), they include a mild but satisfying pork tube and a flavorful garlic knockwurst with a snappy casing.
Most entrees come with two sides, such as the warm kraut and the cucumber salad; both are good. Order The Alpine ($69), and you’ll have an entree that would feed three people. The dish combines sides, sausages, schnitzels and German meatloaf; for unspecified reasons, I received goulash instead of meatloaf. Tack on the highly recommended raclette ($5) — gooey, wonderfully semipungent cheese scraped tableside from a giant half wheel.
Although the substantial fat cap wasn’t crisp (this was the rushed replacement dish), the schaufele ($25) is a fall-off-thebone, beer-scented, juicy and delicious pork-shoulder roast served with longcooked red cabbage and bread dumplings. Pair this entree with the could-be-crisper kartoffelpuffer (sour cream-flavored potato pancake, $10), and it’s dinner for two with staying power.