[This post contains unpaid advertisements as I talk about my personal experiences at Gasthaus Bären and link to their Facebook fanpage]

Gasthaus Bären is located in Stuttgart West, close to Feuersee. It is a one room restaurant with huge glass windows that can be opened entirely and will make a visit in summer quite pleasant. I went there on a Saturday evening with two friends and as I’ve heard that it is always very crowded at Gasthaus Bären in Stuttgart West I’ve made a reservation via email a few days before. However, something went wrong. When we arrived they told us they didn’t get my mail and thus no table is reserved for us. Bummer! However the guy at reception was super friendly and told us to sit at the bar and he will try to find a table for us. So that’s what we did.

I really liked the interior of Gasthaus Bären. Very cozy. But it was also extremely crowded and thus super loud. Having a conversation became quite a challenge after a while.

While sitting at the bar we got the menu and started to select our “Swabian Tapas”. What are Swabian Tapas you might ask now. Well, in the end it is small portions of all your favorite Swabian dishes. The idea behind the Tapas concept is that you don’t have to choose only one dish, you can try many Swabian specialities and share them in your group. I really like that! 🙂

We went for the following: Kässpätzle (Swabian Cheese noodles), Maultaschen (Swabian Ravioli), Knödel in Pilzrahmsoße (Dumplings in creamy Mushroom Sauce) Kartoffelsalat (Swabian Potato Salad), Linsen mit Spätzle (Swabian Noodles with Lentils) and Rote Bete Salat (Beet Root Salad). One thing that we saw on the menu that made us laugh: You can order bread with Nutella for desert! I’ve never seen that in any restaurant before. Nice idea 🙂

Luckily we were able to move over to a table before the food was served. Our also super friendly waitress told us that we can stay here for about an hour before the next guest have made a reservation for this table. That was fine with us.

Then the food arrived and we started sharing and eating. I really liked the dumplings in creamy mushroom sauce. But I have to admit I wasn’t the biggest fan of the other dishes. They were not bad, not at all. But also nothing special. I’ve definitely had better.

After one hour we moved over to the bar again. My friends had some more wine, I had to stick with the lemonade due to my pregnancy. One word about the wine: Check prices before you order. Some wines come by 5 Euro per glass, others by around 20!

So here comes my conclusion about our visit to Gasthaus Bären in Stuttgart West:

What I liked:

• the cozy and creative interior
• the super friendly staff
• the idea of serving Swabian Tapas so that you can try many traditional dishes and share them
• the dumplings in creamy mushroom sauce

What I didn’t like that much:

• that they have messed up our reservation (I got an email from Gasthaus Bären a few days later where they apologized for it so that was at least very friendly)
• that is was very noisy inside
• that the taste of most of the dishes couldn’t keep up to the hype that exists around this restaurant

I think Gasthaus Bären could be a nice place to bring visitors that want to try a variety of Swabian food. However if you want to introduce them to the real taste of the Swabian cuisine – or if you want to have a conversation that does not include yelling at each other – you might want to go somewhere else.

More information

Gasthaus Bären on Facebook

The post What I think about Gasthaus Bären in Stuttgart West appeared first on Living in Stuttgart.

When it comes to Swabian cuisine, Maultaschen for example, our version of ravioli, are a must-try. You can have them in a soup or roasted with potato salad on the side. Fun fact: The “tasty tasches” from Germany are even a topic within the L.A. Police ;-):

Or Spätzle, the famous Swabian noodles. We have them in many dishes: Lentils with Spätzle is something, every child knows and loves. You find Spätzle in the soup Gaisburger Marsch, that stems from the quarter Gaisburg in Stuttgart. And of course there’s the all-time-favorite Kässpätzle (cheese noodles).

One of my favorite dishes is Schupfnudeln with Sauerkraut. You can even tell yourself you’re having a veeery healthy meal because of the Sauerkraut 🙂

And for very brave eaters, the Swabian kitchen offers Saure Kutteln (pickled tripe). I actually never had them but maybe you’re brave enough 🙂

Trying these dishes in a restaurant is one thing, cooking them by yourself another. If you want to impress your family and friends with a Swabian meal, you find the 30 best Swabian (and Baden) recipes in the Swabian cooking book “So schmeckts bei uns” (That’s how it tastes here) by Katharina and Nikola Hild, published at Silberburg-Verlag. The recipes are in German, English and French and cover soups, main courses and desserts from all over Baden-Württemberg. All the dishes I mentioned above are covered in the book, too.

The book comes for 9,90 Euro and can be bought in regular book shops or here (affiliate link):
So schmeckt’s bei uns: Die 30 besten schwäbischen und badischen Rezepte

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