Das Grace

Technique first, then the fjord

The set menu changes by season, and at Das Grace in Mürwik, Flensburg, the kitchen works from technique before interpretation. Executive chef Quirin Brundobler leads the team, supported by cooks drawn from elite hospitality backgrounds, and the register is balance and presence rather than theatrical excess. Falstaff scored the house 91 points in its 2026 Germany guide, with 46 of 50 for food. That kind of standing asks for a hand that can keep structure visible while letting the northern produce carry the plate.

The restaurant sits inside Das James, a former naval building on the Flensburg marina, and its cooking follows the house idea of farm and fjord. The Michelin star belongs to Das Grace, and the work that earned it is quiet in the older sense of the trade: sauces reduced with patience, fish handled for clarity, vegetables given the same attention as meat. Pastry chef Robert Stadtherr closes the meal, with a Schatzkästlein of pralines, macarons, madeleines and chocolates arriving after the last course. The point is not to import another address into this one. It is to understand how a kitchen trained on discipline can stand at a northern German pass and make room for season, salt air, and restraint.

Farm and Fjord in courses

Das Grace builds the meal as two set paths, Farm and Fjord, in 5- to 7-course formats. The line moves between the hotel’s own James Farm in Hörup, local fields and meadows, and seafood from the Danish side of the water. Hörup pork cheeks, Hörup Presa, unprocessed cheeses, eggs from the farm’s hens, Danish king prawn, Icelandic redfish, veal fillet and sweetbread, morels, broccoli, almonds, yellow carrots, sugar snaps and parsley all sit within that grammar. The method is seasonal, but not vague. Gentle cooking, pan-searing, sauce work and ferments shape the rhythm course by course.

There is a Green Star in the 2025 Michelin Guide for the same reason the menu reads with such concentration: sourcing is not decoration here. The farm gives the kitchen a close circle to work from, and the fjord gives it another. A plate of pan-seared Rotbarsch with broccoli and almonds depends on contrast more than ornament. Veal with Sauce Riche asks for old kitchen command. A raspberry soufflé, one of the signatures named by the house, closes from the pastry side with lift rather than weight.

The room holds its pause

The room at Das Grace is high-ceilinged, silk-draped with chandeliers, and set toward the marina. Warm light softens the formal service, and the quiet helps the pass stay present without making itself the subject. From the tables, the Flensburg Fjord is not scenery pasted onto dinner; it is part of the restaurant’s working field, the same water that gives the kitchen its northern bearing.

The counterpoint is the hotel around it. Das James holds other rooms, other outlets, other tempos, but Das Grace keeps the smaller discipline of the set menu. The dining format narrows the choices so the kitchen can control sequence, temperature, sauce, and pace. In that sense, the luxury is practical. A dish leaves the pass when the hands are ready, and the room is built to receive it.

A northern line held steady

The restaurant’s recent recognition gives the place a public frame: one Michelin star, with the Green Star added in 2025. Awards can flatten a kitchen if they become the story. Here they are more useful as evidence of continuity, because the craft keeps returning to the same materials, the same farm, the same water, and the same restraint. Hörup Presa, Rotbarsch, Sauce Riche and raspberry soufflé carry the plate.