Gaumenkitzel

This place was pretty good for my first German food experience. I got the sausage and kraut and it was satisfactory. The food is pretty plain, and a bit expensive, but the ambience and overall environment was pleasant. Beer is good!

Good food, but unprofessional service. If they are too busy, the waiters are passive aggressive.

Went there Friday night and saw there was an older crowd at the tables. I got the beef goulash and a dark ale and felt quite satiated after finishing both. Very friendly staff and good service. Bathrooms were very clean too. Would come back if craving schnitzel or sausage again.

What a neat little find! Sauntered in for an afternoon snack this rainy Sunday. The warm red riding hood red color scheme was inviting, and the mulled wine so perfect for the drab weather. We split the charcuterie plate and loved the sausage, bread, house made pretzel (like a bagel), delectable sweet and spicy mustards, carrot slaw, salad, butter cheese, Brie and pickles. What wonderful combination of flavors and plenty for my omnivore husband and lighter appetited, herbivore me to share. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many vegetarian and lighter dish menu options available, while still maintaining what felt like German authenticity. A delightfully unique restaurant, we are sure to return.

I’m surprised this place doesn’t have more reviews. It has delicious food, interesting beers, and great service! I got the beef goulash which was great, but my friend got the schnitzel which was even more delicious. The entrees are slightly pricey ($ 15 – 25), but I would go back.
Would definitely recommend, too.

Full disclosure — I am German and often annoyed at other German restaurants that clearly just cater to stereotypes rather than culture/​tradition.
Gaumenkitzel, however, is the real deal and I highly recommend it!
We split the Abendbrot platter as an appetizer and it was definitely worthy of five stars! The cold cuts and cheese selection was exactly representative of what would be served for dinner on a typical night, with a great balance of flavors and textures. In many parts of the German speaking world, lunch counts as the important/​large meal of the day, with dinner just being a cold platter of bread, butter, pickles, salad, charcuterie, cheese, and condiments.
For the main course I ordered the Gulasch with Spätzle, which was somewhat underwhelming. It was prepared more like a light lunch than what I was expecting for dinner. The meat wasn’t quite tender enough and the broth was lacking quite a lot of vegetable notes (like savoy cabbage or leeks). For a dinner course, I was more expecting a Rotwein-​Gulasch (Gulasch with a red wine broth — more along the lines of Bœuf Bourguinonne). The menu represents an odd collection of dishes, however, that reflect neither the seasonality or range dinner flavors typically found in Germany. My friend ordered the Schnitzel, which didn’t come with any condiments and lacked the classic wavy surface, but looked very good and well-​tenderized.
All in all, this is an authentic German experience and delivers on that promise very well!

Excellent place! I really liked the ambience: the details of the table candles against a backdrop of wooden-​beamed and bricks, a HUGE selection of drinks (beer, wine, mixed, «fitness» alcoholic and non alcoholic), even the waiters spoke w such elegant accent that my friend turned to me and asked «do you think it’s a requirement to have German accent to work here!?» Lol
So food: I had the snitchzel, tried my friend’s pork loin and wonderful baked pasta w cheese and weiner plate. We didn’t grab drinks since we had plans to hit up a brewery down the street, but I’d definitely come back for them.
One minor warning, I thought this place would be 10 – 15 range, but turns out to be more 15 – 20 range. But that’s about it. Happy to return!

My sis and I stopped in here on a whim and boy am I happy we did. Cute place. We only tried one thing on the menu and it was delicious. It was the vegetarian gnocchi like entrée it starts with an S. It had mushrooms and cheese on it and it was so tasty. Can’t wait to go back and try more things on the menu and of course the beer.

Coming into the restaurant, we’re greeted by waitresses dressed in classic German dresses and the restaurant seems like any German tavern.
My friend and I came in and ordered beef goulash and pork loin schnitzel both beds of spätzle, a free form noodle, and we also shared a pot of delicious aromatic chai tea.
The spätzle had a nice texture of being soft yet not too chewy– however it was tasteless. No hint of salt at all. My schnitzel on the other hand was too salty and the meat was overly fried– itwasn’t a way that light and fluffy texture you want.
There was also a cabbage side on my schnitzel that was slightly sweet, probably from being cooked from apple cider. However, I was expecting it to have more bite from salt or something. My friend seemed to enjoy her goulash and the meat was apparently well seasoned and soft.
Service was okay. The waitress came back enough to get our food and make sure we were okay, but there was a time that there was a lull in service.
At the end of the day, maybe I came in at a bad time. I didn’t leave feeling very satisfied. But I would come back to perhaps try a different dish or one of their scrumptious looking desserts.

I get hankering for German food and beer on occasion. The hankering strengthens around October time, coincidence??? I love to order beers with names like Augustinerbrau Maximator in my hacked up Schwartzenneger accent. It just does it for me.
But this place just fell slightly short on the mark, on what I consider delivering the German experience. First the beer list is quite decent, but was a bit confusing on how they formatted it on their menu. Actually the whole menu has a weird and inefficient design. There are a lot of pages, in what can be literally covered in 2 – 3 pages. So there is a lot of page shuffling.
Second the service is extremely nice but just a bit spotty/​inefficient. They will effectively answer questions. The food does arrive in very timely fashion. But try and get a refill on a drink or get a check in a timely manner proved difficult on our service. Just an observation from one outing so may just be an off night.
The food is solid, but honestly I’ve had better/​tastier dishes at Spiessenkammer (Alameda), Brozeit Lokal (Oakland) or Teske’s (San Jose). For example their Beef Goulash ($ 15.50), which they use a sourced beef (so Berkeley) was tender and rich but a bit underseasoned. And there are no salt and pepper shakers at the tables, so it was not easily fixable.
Their Kaissen Spaetzele with Knackwurst ($ 11.50) is incredibly homey and solid. Really comforting with a cold German Brew. This is an ancestor dish of mac n’ cheese with hot dogs, meaning this is probably where it originated from. Before you snub your nose to this dish, it is thick and hearty spaetzle noodles, a light dose of melted quality cheddar, a stealthy note of good mustard and chopped up quality knackwurst, which most will associate with the weiner hot dog. I was told by a German dude once, that this was comfort food for them. I actually dug this, in an amusing way.
Pork Schnitzel ($ 16.50) was simple yet good. Sourced pork (of course) loin sliced thin and perfectly breaded and fried. The texture was spot on and actually seasoned nice. Squeeze of lemon makes it classic. Will try the hunter’s style next time with the mushroom-​wine gravy. Braised red cabbage was a hit, with chunks of apple and a soft vinegar base. Just a smaller portion than what is normally given at other German joints.
Solid enough to try a revisit. Prost!

service here was excellent and the food was good, although nothing to write home about. As a German, bad pun intended.
Beef Goulash: thin and lacking of spices: even salt and pepper. NOT worth the price
Schnitzel: again, very lethargic flavors… NOT worth the price
Bretzel and Knackwurst: Yummy!
Salad: was really hoping for a good German salad, but, alas an American one was served – huh?
Standard for all German fare is the rotkohl (red cabbage). NO flavor. What?
Overall, glad I tried it, but not going back. With so many GOOD German choices, and the expensive prices, I just don’t see the point.
Maybe if they spent less time trying to be hip and focused on the food…
I wanted to introduce my friend to German food. But ended up explaining this was NOT it.

Yes owner of Gaumenkitzel we have not been back in years because of your horrible service, small portions and overpriced items.
I find it odd that you single out my posting to complain when you have PLENTY of negative reviews you could easily comment on. Just click rating and then the little icon that shows your low scores. Why single me out??? Because I’m from Germany? Because I have been to your restaurant and wasted thousands of dollars with friends and family over the course of the time I would even walk through your doors? What gives? Complain to someone else, just because you don’t serve a certain dish doesn’t mean your service isn’t horrible and slow, etc.
Although my mother who was born and raised in Bamberg was there recently and said it was dreadful, so I have my answer to how you’ve been doing since 2012. I however refused to go with, why waste my money when I can eat great homemade German food? I have to be honest I am shocked you are still open. We make our own rouladen at home and it’s fantastic. Speissekammer in Alameda is also very good as well and they have attentive staff and a lovely wine list and beer list as well which makes it perfect for celebrations. Suppenkuche in SF is also great!
I highly doubt you’ll be around in another 3 years with your attitude and your restaurant’s flaws. MANY people agree, just read your reviews. Angering people is not the way to do business by the way. You should be apologizing.

Décor is bonkers, it’s hard to really make sense of it all. It’s a mix between modern, eclectic, and a pub. There’s kegs all over and knick knacks lining the shelves. Really, really weird.
Space aside, beer selection and food is great — service is also on point. The high point is definitely the spatzle with schnitzel. Give it a try and you’ll be blown away.
Chill spot, just a bit of an oddball kind of place. But hey, if you’re in the mood for some German food and beer, you can’t go wrong. This place will certainly hit all those notes.

The décor here is a bit strange I must admit… something just clashes between the modern chairs and ceilings along with the pub-​style of a german brewery. However, the service here was excellent and the food was good, although I wouldn’t go out of your way here unless you were really craving german food for some reason. It’s an interesting classy, but still casual vibe.
: Beef Goulash with Spatzle: One of their most popular dishes, which was soul-​warming and was definitely filing. The spatzle was good, but could have used more flavor. I also wish the dish had more greens to go with it, though that’s probably not very traditional German.
: Duo of Salmon: This is a seasonal special was quite delicious. The salmon the skin was pan-​fried to a crisp while the fish itself was cooked medium-​well. The smoked salmon salad was good, but nothing too spectacular about how this portion was cooked.
Overall it was a good experience, but I’m not sure what occasion I’d have to return…

Yes, after a long time we finally tried this place. I wanted German food and beer for lunch so Gaumenkitzel fit the bill. I was brought up on meat and potatoes so this place should be just like home when I was a kid.
We received a welcoming greeting when entering the place and had great friendly service. We ordered our beer immediately and got into it before getting our lunch. The beer was very good. I enjoyed the fact the menu is in German and English, very cool.
I ordered the delicatessen wiener knockwurst on spatzle, and my wife ordered a schnitzel sandwich. I really enjoyed my dish, since I have not had spatzle before. It has a nice soft texture and makes a nice bed for the knockwurst. The knockwurst was very good, fairly mild, but the cheese on top gave the dish a nice balance. The beer filled us up so no dessert today.
There were only a few other customers in the place so it was nice and quiet for our casual lunch. The bill was reasonable. Next time we need a beer lunch we will be back!

German food is vastly underrated. It’s the truth. It is one of my favorite cuisines in the world. Yet, it gets no respect, in part, I think it’s because its people do not have, did not, have the discriminating taste as their neighbors like the French do. But, as the restaurant’s English and Deutsch menu will tell you, Germany now has second largest number of Michelin stars next to France. Wait, I thought the country with the most Michelin stars is Japan. I was clearly wrong, but nonetheless, it’s a known fact among insiders that if you want quality Michelin star food, and cannot withstand a 2 months wait for a table in France, go to Germany. Hamburg is considered one of the top food destinations in Germany
Gaumenkitzel hails from Hamburg region. Sort of. The owners did anyway. The food, as I was eating it, generated a bit of stir on Unilocal.You see, I have a Unilocaler friend who’s based in Frankfurt, it’s still night time for him, and he has literately commented on every single dish that I photoed and uploaded onto Unilocal.He liked what he saw. And if this is not a compliment to Gaumenkitzel, then I don’t know what is.
I made a reservation for 10 people. The restaurant had a great ambience. The food had a great influence from Hamberg, though it did have one or two dishes that were from Swabia. I have traveled up and down and cross Germany in my recent years. I am a fan of Swabian aka Southern Germany food aka the area near Stuttgart. Many American soldiers have ended up there (U.S. military base is right there) and brought back their blond German brides from that region. Their children are first generation Americans and often grew up on Swabian food. I make my own spaetzle, because I had a roommate early on in my life who is one of those brides, she was from Stuttgart and taught me many traditional Swabian dishes. I was also there last July where I ate my way through Frankfurt, Mannheim, Munich, Stuttgart and Baden-​Baden. Suffice to say, German food can be really really good and it bears great similarities to American food, even. So when you have a table for ten, it’s best to host it at a place like this one because it offers a great variety of dishes. My favorite is the mixer which has sausages (including liver sausage of course), cheese, salad, beets, and bread. Others tend to have the fried pork aka schnitzel. Nearly every dish came with either sauerkraut, spaetzle and red cabbage. You really can’t go wrong with that.
Bier is plentiful, many are on the tab. I do what folks do in the summer in Germany. I ordered a Radler.
Service was splendid.
When one thinks about bay area German restaurants (which I do often, apparently), you generally have a few fairly well known ones to choose from: Suppenkuche, very Bavarian; Leopold, very Austrian; Speisekammer, very American crowd pleaser; Tyrolean Inn, very Black Forest (their black forest cake reminds me the ones I had in the Black Forest). There are a few others too but for the most part, they veel towards Southern German. Gaumenkitzel, conceptualize by its owners from Hamburg, is the only Northern German restaurant I’ve found so far.
Just like the Chinese did not invent the fortune cookies, the Germans did not invent German chocolate cake. When it comes to dessert time, don’t be fooled. Ask something that you’d get if you were truly in Germany. Get their pound cake. Not exactly the same kind you’d get in your local Safeway; get their strudel — that day it had pluot strudel. meringue cookie is huge and they charge one dollar then get a bag of small cookies to go for $ 3. It’s like depression era price. And I mean it in the most complimentary way.
The restaurant is well constructed and well laid out. With outdoor seating for your best friend (in my case, it’s the then 11 week old half St. Barbard, half golden retriever puppy, my baby Abby), and strong coffee, one can hardly complain about anything really.
We got up to leave when the lady chased me out to hand me my silver earring, apparently I had dropped inside the restaurant. I thanked her.
If you were of dating age still, take note. Bring your date here. Even if she/​he does not know that foodies in Europe are trending Germany for good and fanciful food nowadays instead of Paris, they’d still be suitably impressed by how pretty and tasty the food Garmenkitzel serves up.

Service was a bit slow even though the restaurant wasn’t completely full. I came here with my sister and her bf on a Saturday night, and was presently surprised of how big the space was, as from the outside it doesn’t look that way. Parking’s not too bad to find but the restaurant is located on a busy street.
What we got:
1) Potato salad with white bavarian sausage, carrot, and beets: pretty good! I would get this again. We liked the white sausage, not chewy and super flavorful
2) Smoked pork loin and sauerkraut with mashed potatoes: yum! The pork was perfectly smoky and juicy. I’m always impressed when restaurants get the cook of the pork right. Mashed potatoes were equally yummy with the sauerkraut!
3) Crispy veggie cake on arugula salad, carrots, and spaetzle: Loved how light this dish is (aside from the spaetzle) – the veggie cake I think was made up of carrots and parsnips, and every component on the dish was really nice to have so it wasn’t too much of one thing that I would get sick of while eating.
4) Strawberry Rhubarb and rosemary tart with whipped cream: yum! My sister and I shared this at the end and we both enjoyed the homemade whip and the very subtle rosemary taste that wasn’t overpowering – it was just right. Only thing is that it was $ 5.50 for it and I think if it was $ 3 or so, I would get it again.
Overall, I think this place is definitely somewhere I’d come back to get German food! It’s not too heavy and I think the portions are perfect so that it’s not too overwhelming. Seeing as there are more German places in San Francisco, Gaumenkitzel is a place I’ll be going to when I don’t feel like traveling far to get my fill of protein and carbs :)

I happened to come by Gaumenkitzel by chance and was pleasantly surprised!
This German restaurant is bright and clean inside. They offer a large variety of wine and German beer.
For an appetizer I highly recommend the mixed platter. This fantastic dish comes with liver sausage, German butter cheese, mixed greens, beets, pickles, carrot thyme salad and bread with butter.
For an entrée I got the crispy pan fried veggie cake. This dish was very tasty and not too heavy. It also came with mixed greens, herbed spatzle, and carrot salad.
Finally I loved the ruby grapefruit buttercream dessert. Honestly what I liked most was that it wasn’t too sweet and had a fresh grapefruity flavor!
Overall this was a great experience. Great food, great beer, and very clean. They also have the cleanest restaurant bathrooms I have ever seen (they even have towels in addition to just paper towels!).
Definitely worth checking out!

It’s almost unfair for a pescatarian to rate a German restaurant, no? And yet, I was able to find a good number of items on Gaumenkitzel’s menu that catered to my chosen dietary lifestyle. So, yay! I’m a fan of Gaumenkitzel for the mere fact that I was not relegated to munching on soft pretzels the whole evening :)
The regular vegetarian-​friendly entrée is mushroom ragout on spaetzle. The rotating special that night was grilled salmon. I chose to go with the spaetzle, which consisted of hearty, creamy, earthy mushrooms on irregularly sized egg noodles. The sauce was delicious, although a tad salty for my taste. My partner had the schnitzel, which looked well-​breaded and fried; apparently it’s the must-​order. The red cabbage on the side was flavorful and plentiful; I wish they served it with the spaetzle, as it would have provided some much-​needed tang and contrast to the creaminess of the mushroom sauce.
Dessert was a gigantic lemon merengue. If you’re undecided about what to order for your sweet tooth, you can saunter right up to the counter, where they have all the sweets on display.

What a great find off of the busy street of San Pablo. Gaumenkitzel is a warm, softly lit restaurant with big windows, tall ceilings, and comfy seats. The staff is equally warm and inviting. I don’t know a whole lot about German food, but I do know that everything I tasted here was amaaaay-​zingly tasty. As I perused the menu, I realized that everything was German on the left hand side and English on the right. Talk about legit! ;) I like that you can feel good about what you’re eating at Gaumenkitzel, too, as they are a certified green business. They only use organic, sustainable, and local ingredients.
My kaesespaetzle au gratin was so simple, yet so perfect. It was filling, but not overly so. I loved how the spaetzle was chewy, but not too heavy. The onions and Gruyère cheese married well to the spaetzle, filling the spaces between each noodle. There was a little housemade side dish of carrot salad which accompanied my dish. It was a refreshing complement to the cheesy goodness of the spaetzle.
The crispy gaumenkitzel schnitzel of homestead pork loin was divine. I highly recommend this one if it’s your first time at Gaumenkitzel. My boyfriend couldn’t get enough of it — he even remarked that he wished the dish came with two of the pork loins. I was able to snatch a bite of it before he gobbled it up. I can attest to the fact that the pork loin was perfectly seasoned and crispy on the outside.

Schade, dass die meisten von uns (Amis) eine enge Idee deutscher Kueche haben. Gaumenkitzel ist kein so «Ompa-​pa-​pa» bayrisches Restaurant. Der Ziel, so weit ich weiss, des Restos ist «small carbon footprint» mit leichter, leckerer Kueche zusammen. Die Atmosphaere Gaumenkitzels ist offen, nett und fruehlingsmaessig. (Vielleicht doch nur weil es grad Fruehling ist!)
Was mir nicht gefaellt war die (nicht so) deutsche Aussprache der Angestelltinnen, weil es eigentlich ziemlich einfach ist, z.B., «Teekeks» korrekt auszusprechen. Es ist nicht «ti» so wie das Englische «pea», sondern «te» wie das Englische «may». Schwierig ist es gar nicht. :D
I know, I’m a picky b&*% when it comes to most things German. But, hey, let’s be open to different interpretations of German cuisine as Germans and Germany differ from region to region.
**Apologies to Muttersprachler who may read this as my Deutsch is poor!