Head Chef
Micha Schäfer
Head Chef, Nobelhart & Schmutzig
- Discipline
- Head Chef
Portrait of Micha Schäfer
i. Biography
Since 2015, the kitchen at Speiselokal Nobelhart & Schmutzig in Berlin has worked from a narrow regional brief: fields, market gardens, seasons, preservation, and the food culture surrounding the city. As Head Chef and Culinary Director, Micha Schäfer is part of a Modern German practice built less on nostalgia than on proximity. The plate is determined by what grows nearby, what can be stored or preserved, and what the land around Berlin offers at a given point in the year.
Coming Up
The Head Chef and Culinary Director role at Nobelhart & Schmutzig has, since 2015, required a disciplined reading of region. In Micha Schäfer’s hands, that means working inside limits rather than treating them as obstacles. The kitchen does not lean on familiar luxuries from elsewhere; it turns toward the immediate region and uses constraint as a working method. Regional cooking here is not decorative. It is strict, agricultural, and dependent on close contact with producers, seasons, weather, and storage. The work accepts that winter and summer offer different materials, then builds from those conditions rather than from a fixed restaurant template.
Now
Purely regional sourcing defines the cooking at Speiselokal Nobelhart & Schmutzig, where Micha Schäfer is Head Chef. The kitchen relies almost exclusively on products from the Berlin region, particularly vegetables and herbs, with the aim that the guest tastes the Berlin area itself. The restaurant’s “brutally local” position gives the cuisine its tension. Agriculture near Berlin sets the terms, and the menu follows the land rather than requiring the land to serve a prewritten idea. Within that radius, flavors can move through earthy, sharp, fresh, saline, sour, mellow, or deeply vegetal registers, but they remain tied to local cultivation and the people who do that work. Preservation becomes necessary under rigid local restrictions. Pickling, drying, and brining allow Micha Schäfer’s kitchen to keep a wider range of ingredients available through winter without stepping outside its own frame. Fermenting belongs to the same practical vocabulary: a way to bring depth, acidity, savor, and time into a cuisine shaped by cold months and short harvests. Home #2: Chicken Fricassee is one stated expression of this practice, a reinterpretation of a German home-meal classic. The dish uses familiarity as a structure for the restaurant’s larger method: domestic memory handled through technique, and tradition reconsidered through the demands of the Berlin region.
Career - Head Chef / Culinary Director, Nobelhart & Schmutzig, Berlin, Germany (2015–present)
Signature
Signature dishes include Home #2: Chicken Fricassee.
Credentials
Micha Schäfer has received The One Michelin star for Nobelhart & Schmutzig. Recognition for Micha Schäfer’s work includes One Michelin star.
FAQ What does Micha Schäfer currently do? Micha Schäfer is chef at Nobelhart & Schmutzig, Modern German, Creative. What recognition has Micha Schäfer received? One Michelin star. What is Micha Schäfer known for? Pickling, fermenting and other preserving techniques.
