Dresden Restaurants
From: Dresden, Germany
ABOVE: At the Restaurant Dresden 1900, small
groups can dine in a vintage tram. INSET BELOW: The Café
Alte Meister, where the plum cake is superb.
Restaurants and cafés
 Hearty,
down-to-earth Saxon cuisine is a mainstay of many Dresden restaurants. It's
heavy on meat, dumplings, and other accompaniments that may have you reaching
for an extra Lipitor, but why quibble when you're on vacation? Take another
portion, wash it down with
Radeburger Pilsner
or a Krušovice
Cerne dark beer from across the border
in the Czech Republic, and order a slice of the local Eierschecke
(a custard-topped cheesecake) for dessert.
Mind you, Dresden does have other dining options, from Asian to
Tex-Mex. See the tourist office's
Restaurants, Bars and Pubs in Dresden listings.
Some of the restaurants that we've sampled personally include:
-
The dining room of the
Steinberger Hotel de Saxe
(good food, pleasant modern hotel atmosphere);
-
 Dresden 1900
(vintage theme, with an antique streetcar in the middle of the dining room,
music in the late evening, a choice of modern dishes or "Grandma's recipes"
from old Saxony, and a uniformed tram conductor for atmosphere)
-
The delightful Café
Alte Meister on Theaterplatz (a
classic Dresden establishment that serves lunch, dinner, and drinks or
coffee and cake between meals);
-
Pulvertum an der Frauenkirche (Saxon food and drink, including suckling
pig, in a cheerful if slightly corny atmosphere. Ask for the
Last Meal
if you're expecting to be shot or hanged at dawn.)
 If you're visiting Dresden in nice weather, don't miss the
Carolaschlösschen,
or Little Carola Palace, in the Grosse Garten (Dresden's large city park). During the
summer, you can eat or drink at a table by the lake, and the Monday-Friday lunch
buffet is popular year-round. (I suggest taking the
Dresden Park Railway to the
Carolaschlösschen, just for fun. You can catch a train at a number of points in
the park, including a station across the street from
Volkswagen's Transparent Factory
at the edge of the city center.
Going-away goodies
The
Dresden Airport shops include a branch of the
Heberer Wiener Feinbäcker
chain where you can load up on topnotch German breads before your departure.
I
can personally recommend the bakery's "Teff-Brot" Dreikornbrot , a coarse-textured
three-grain bread that travels well and makes a great gift or edible trip
souvenir. (Heberer also has several other branches in Dresden, including
Schlossstrasse in the Altstadt and Prager Strasse north of the railroad
station.)
Next page:
Nightlife, gay scene
1st inset photo copyright © DWT/Christoph Münch.
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