Storchen

A Baden pass held in restraint

The plate leaves the pass with the old virtues intact: clean sauce, measured garnish, heat held long enough to make the cut matter. Bryce Bonsack, Chef at Storchen in Bad Krozingen, works here inside a Baden inn whose kitchen asks for control before signature. His formation carries pressure from two New York City rooms, Blanca and Corton, each a two-Michelin-starred kitchen, and an Italian thread that later shaped his handmade pasta, tableside mozzarella, and dry-aged meats in Tampa. At Storchen, the vocabulary changes. The room belongs to classic German fine dining with a French line running through the fish, the sauces, and the expectation that nothing loud should need to announce itself. The inn itself dates to 1764 and has been run across four generations by the family that still gives the house its continuity. Bonsack’s current station sits within that older rhythm, not over it. Storchen held One Michelin Star in 2024 and again in 2025, recognition attached to this address, in a kitchen where Baden produce, farm-garden sourcing, and a set menu format leave little cover for excess.

The garden sets the first argument

Storchen’s method begins close to the building, with produce from its own farm garden and local sourcing shaping a kitchen that stays traditional without becoming fixed. The menu moves between set formats and à la carte cooking, with a vegetarian menu beside the main sequence and a larger tasting menu known as Der Grosse Storch. The work cited from the pass is exact in its choices: halibut poached in olive oil with vegetable bolognese and homemade parmesan gnocchi; mackerel with fennel ceviche and saffron; lobster with curry and couscous; duck with crisp red cabbage and fried bread dumpling triangles. These are not rustic plates dressed up for ceremony. They are classic decisions made under tighter discipline, with poaching, seasoning, brunoise, and sauce work doing the carrying. The wine program follows the same temper, favoring German produce and regional bottles suited to Markgräfler Land rather than spectacle from the cellar.

Wood panelling, tiled stove, pond light

The room keeps the inn in view while the kitchen works. Wooden panelling, an old tiled stove, and quieter dining areas give the service a domestic gravity, though the cooking belongs to a fine dining station rather than a tavern bench. Other rooms move more modern, and the garden terrace opens to a pond, which changes the pace of the meal without loosening the discipline at the pass. Storchen’s scale helps. A small room hears more than it declares: cutlery, glass, the pause before a sauce reaches the table. The farm garden remains the better close than any promise of novelty, because the next plate here still has to answer to the same soil, the same pass, and Der Grosse Storch.