Sylt, once described to me as Germany’s answer to Martha’s Vineyard, is the largest of the German islands facing Denmark and a favourite holiday haunt for well-heeled, gastronomically inclined Germans. It certainly attracts the wealthy – as evidenced by the number of private planes that flew over us as we tasted an impressive range of wines from Denmark, Sweden and Sylt on a 2-ha (5-acre) vineyard planted with Solaris vines next to the airport. But you don’t need a lot of money to enjoy this island.
For years it had been an ambition of mine to see Sylt although I am not sure precisely why. When we finally arrived there, we found wide open beaches, terrific vistas, remarkably flat farmland and a high Porsche quotient. Two of the many restaurants we enjoyed, one in a hotel, were opened 40 years ago by chefs with an innate sense of hospitality and both today boast fabulous wine lists. Furthermore, what I discovered was that this small island possesses at least four restaurant cellars – two revealed here, two of which I will write about on my return in early September – stuffed with excellent wine from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and California in enormous depth. And at extremely friendly prices. Perhaps even more unusually, Sylt boasts a treasure trove of port and Madeira.
There are a few telltale signs as you enter what has been Jörg Müller’s professional home for the past 40 years, the Hotel & Restaurant Jörg Müller, of the liquid pleasures on offer.
The reception desk doubles as an extra bar. There are bottles of their home-made egg liqueur on sale for €24. Behind is a vast array of different bottles of schnapps. There are two dining rooms off the main lobby with a third, partially open to the elements, just beyond with shelves full of, inter alia, bottles bearing some of the top names of Burgundy.
Then there is a vast menu with a range of dishes, from three kinds of goose liver to a pot au feu of European lobster to their classic North Sea sole with parsley potatoes. Then, loitering with intent, is Müller’s son-in-law Ben Müller-Birkholz hugging his pride and joy, an equally vast wine list, close to his chest.
Finally, at about 9.30 pm came the man himself. Jörg Müller is today 78 but still strong and formidable. He has a full head of hair, wonderfully thick eyebrows and curly moustache and a perennial smile. Wearing a white chef’s jacket over a pair of jeans he toured the room, checking that everything was to his customers’ satisfaction and thanking everybody for coming. Then he walked out, leaving the floor to Ben and Jörg’s daughter Jana.
This show takes place every Wednesday to Sunday in Westerland, the main town on Sylt.
It was the island’s bounty that first drew Jörg Müller, seen below making 1,000 lamb sausages on the morning of our departure, to Sylt in the early 1980s. He was then a young itinerant chef who had trained in southern Germany before cooking in Greece and The Dorchester in London before an opportunity to move north presented itself. The island offers oysters, mussels, shrimp and fish from the North Sea; cattle, lamb and chickens; all types of fruit and vegetables; butter and cheeses aplenty; and even snipe, a Müller speciality in the autumn. Müller won two Michelin stars in his day before handing them back.
But Müller had a secret passion for wine and from the beginning he laid down a cellar, starting with bordeaux from 1982 (Petrus 1982 is still on the list for €5,800 a bottle). And the list has grown to incorporate not just a lovely range of German wines but burgundies that range widely over such names as Rousseau, Lachaux, Liger-Belair, Domaine Leroy and even Henri Jayer (a 1983 Échezeaux at €16,000 for instance). We drank more modestly, choosing a Dönnhoff Hermannshöhle Riesling GG 2015 (€120) and a thoroughly satisfying bottle of Domaine Trévallon 2004 (inspired by the 2001 that we enjoyed at a recent dinner) that was only €160.
We enjoyed our food just as much. As soon as we were seated, Ben told us of a special first course – a crépinette of quail – which we should not miss. But our eyes had already been taken by the second appetiser, young home-filleted matjes herring on Frisian bread with chives, so we improvised. We ordered the herring, then a half portion of the quail and then a main course, in my case veal tongue with a chive sauce. As Jana, the chef’s daughter, handed around our plates of herring she could not help herself from telling us, ‘this is the best dish on the menu’.
The herring were delightful, plump and sweet. The crépinette was symbolic of a highly experienced kitchen, the quail pink and moist, stuffed with a small quantity of foie gras and lying on an unctuous mound of risotto laced with diced black truffle. The veal tongue, which comprised at least four slices of the meat, was copious, delicious and the perfect accompaniment for the tagliatelle. I would happily return for the baked cherries in port (port being a speciality on Sylt thanks to an enthusiasm for it on the part of the two chefs profiled here) with walnut-brittle ice cream.
The hotel rooms are extremely comfortable, as one might expect from the hotel facade above. The breakfast buffet is remarkably generous. And, perhaps not surprisingly, this is a hotel run by a family, the family of the chef who opened it originally. It’s a place that exudes warmth and a sense of hospitality that the original owner has managed to pass on to his daughter, his son and his son-in-law.
Several years after Müller had established himself, a particular stretch of white sand known locally as Sansibar (the next beach along is known as Samoa) attracted a young Herbert Seckler, another trained chef from southern Germany but one with, initially, very different culinary ambitions.
At the outset, Seckler opened a simple outlet with a grill that soon caught fire. He went to the bank and asked for a large loan that would allow him to establish a proper business that would in time repay the loan. So began what has today become Sansibar, a restaurant that on a good day can serve 4,000 customers and to one table the week we were there successive magnums of Petrus, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s Romanée-Conti and Screaming Eagle.
Some of the restaurant’s appeal is its unique setting, on top of a sand dune that leads down to a wide-open beach that is much less crowded but no less sensational than the one pictured at the top of this article. (Such building on top of Sylt’s characteristic dunes has since been banned.) Opposite the restaurant is a large sandy playground which attracts families with young children. But as Seckler admitted, ‘We built the playground so that my wife and I could keep our eyes on our own children as we worked in the kitchen’.
Seckler quickly established a restaurant with multiple charms in a location that would appeal to customers of all ages. Today, it has an eclectic menu for dinners at two sittings, 6 and 8 pm: massive portions of soups, sushi, pasta, beef and seafood and a dessert section that offers Kaiserschmarrn, the Austrian shredded pancake that is so popular it occupies one chef all day and evening. Highlights included a North Sea sole with a butter sauce; the giant pan of saltwater prawns in garlic butter shown below; and a fillet of beef with a vast baked potato.
With these our party drank a 2023 Kiedricher Turmberg Riesling from Robert Weil (€79); a 2007 Corton, Clos des Vergennes (just €120) from Cachat-Ocquidant, a producer Seckler told us he had been shown as prices from others in the region continued to rise; and finished with a 2022 Erbacher Marcobrunn from Künstler (who was at the next table with a large party), also for €120.
The real excitement for our table was the enormous wine list. Ever since an introduction many years ago to a well-placed Californian, Seckler has developed a strong California list to accompany his popular meat dishes: a full page of Harlan plus many a Promontory, Bond, Opus One and Scarecrow are offered in all shapes and sizes. Sansibar’s clients have expensive tastes and Seckler and his son Niklas, seen below at our table, have happily supplied them all.
We accepted Niklas’s invitation to visit the cellar, which included a walk along the narrow passageway between the kitchen and the service area that was frantically busy. A narrow staircase brought us to an L-shaped cellar with the white wines in the front part and the reds further behind, guarded by a large collection of bottles and magnums of Petrus.
‘Chaos’ and ‘chaotic’ were the words most commonly on Niklas’s lips to describe the layout of these cellars but I suspect that there was a lot more organisation and systematic planning than he would readily admit to.
We left Sansibar just before 9 pm when the restaurant was full again and its noise level was definitely rising. The wind was blowing hard and the waves crashing down on the beach in the distance. The surrounding scenery was stunning, not just the view of the beach but a wild landscape just inland of the dunes, and almost moon-like despite the plethora of green. Below is the view from our table. It was unlike any other restaurant setting I have ever been to anywhere else in the world.
Herbert Seckler came to say goodbye and explained that ‘Sylt is so special because we have the nicest clients in the world’. I beg to differ. Sylt has two exceptional restaurants whose chefs have settled here, have fallen in love with the island, and have nurtured a sense of hospitality that they have passed on to the next generation.
Hotel & Restaurant Jörg Müller Süderstrasse 8, Westerland, 25980 Sylt, Germany; tel: +49 (0)46 51 27 788. Dinner only, restaurant closed Monday and Tuesday.
Restaurant Sansibar Hörnumer Strasse 80, Rantum, 25980 Sylt, Germany; tel: +49 (0)46 51 96 46 46
Every Sunday, Nick writes about restaurants. To stay abreast of his reviews, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
