Silk Bed Restaurant in Frankfurt: Mario Lohninger excels with a potpourri of fabulous ideas

Mario Lohninger's Silk Bed Restaurant, in the offbeat surroundings of DJ legend Sven Väth's Cocoon Club, is a restaurant in a class of its own.

The modest, multi-talented Mario Lohninger not only runs the Silk and the Micro restaurants in the Cocoon Club, but he also added the Lohninger in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen at the beginning of 2010. Six years on, his flagship Silk Restaurant is still as fresh and zeitgeisty as the day it opened; it's the breeding ground for his new culinary ideas. Lohninger's style of cuisine reflects his career stages to date – his understanding of ingredients from his time with the Obauers, the grand simplicity of Hans Haas, Japanese influences from the Tsuji Cooking School in Osaka and the perfect precision of Guy Savoy, all underlined by his passion for integrating superbly cooked Austrian classics into the Silk repertoire.

The procedure at Silk is novel. There is one sitting beginning at a set time and the same menu is served to all guests, although account is taken of allergies and other preferences. The opening act is a ballet of four amuse bouches, mostly including a signature cornetto (for example with Büsum shrimps and cucumber & wasabi sorbet) and a little sushi gem made by Kawano-san, who prepares the best sushi for miles around at Silk and at Micro. For the main course, Lohninger usually serves his one-hour organic egg in rapid variations, two fish or seafood dishes (for instance the legendary caramelised scallop with baby calamari, king crab and tomato & coriander sauce) and a braised meat dish. A waltz of desserts then rounds off this exceptional gastronomic experience – be sure to request Lohninger's sensational Kaiserschmarrn.

© Prof. Dr. Ingo Scheuermann