Cologne Food: 10 Rhineland Dishes and What Is Actually on the Plate

Cologne stands for the cathedral, for Carnival and for Kölsch, and its food connects all three. Nothing here is refined. What arrives is direct, cheap enough that a table of four does not flinch, and considerably better in a proper brewhouse than anything you could recreate at home. These ten dishes cover almost every menu in the city.

The short version

• Himmel un Ääd is mashed potatoes, apple sauce and blood sausage.
• Halver Hahn is not chicken. It is a rye roll with aged Gouda.
• Rievkooche are crisp potato pancakes, traditionally with apple sauce.
• Flönz simply means blood sausage in Cologne dialect.
• Sauerbraten is pot roast in a sweet raisin gravy.
• You drink Kölsch with all of it, in a 0.2-liter glass, never a half-liter mug.

1. Himmel un Ääd

The most famous dish of the Rhineland and a safe first order. The name means "heaven and earth" and refers to the two main ingredients: apples for heaven, potatoes for earth. On top comes sliced blood sausage, fried until the edges crisp, plus browned onions. The contrast of sweet apple against the deep, iron-rich sausage is the whole idea of the dish.

What goes into it

• Starchy potatoes, boiled and mashed
• Tart apples such as Boskop, cooked down into a sauce
• Blood sausage, sliced and pan-fried
• Onions, cut into rings and browned in the same pan

At home the apple sauce is stirred into the mashed potatoes and the sausage and onions go on top. In a brewhouse you usually get all three as separate components on the plate.

2. Halver Hahn

The single most misunderstood item on any Cologne menu. Halver Hahn, also written Halve Hahn, translates as "half a rooster," and it contains no poultry whatsoever. You get a rye roll, called a Röggelchen, split and loaded with a thick slice of medium-aged Gouda, butter, mustard and raw onion rings. It is one of the best cheap snacks in Germany and it exists mainly to be eaten alongside a Kölsch after work.

Three theories about the name

• The misunderstood guest: a customer ordered "half a chicken," the landlord heard "half a roll," brought bread and cheese, and the name stuck.
• The lean-years theory: chicken was unaffordable, cheese was the substitute, and the name survived as a joke about it.
• The staff snack: when the beer barrel in the brewhouse was nearly empty, the Köbes got a break and a roll, a "halven Hahn."

3. Rievkooche

Elsewhere in Germany they are Reibekuchen or Kartoffelpuffer. In Cologne they are Rievkooche: grated potato, onion, egg and salt, fried crisp in hot oil. The traditional partner is apple sauce, though plenty of people prefer them with sugar-beet syrup or with dark rye bread and butter. You will smell them before you see them at any market stall or Christmas market.

What is in them, for four people

• About 2 pounds of starchy potatoes
• 1 to 2 eggs
• 1 large onion, finely grated
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Neutral, high-heat oil for frying

4. Flönz

Flönz is Cologne dialect for blood sausage, and it is the quiet star of half this list. It turns up cold in slices with raw onion and mustard, hot and crisp from the pan, or buried in Himmel un Ääd. If a menu offers "Kölsch Kaviar," that is Flönz with bread and onions, not fish roe. Americans who have eaten British black pudding will recognize it immediately; everyone else should try one slice before deciding.

Three ways it is served

• Classic: cold, sliced, with onions, mustard and rye bread
• Fried: crisped in the pan alongside mashed potatoes
• In Himmel un Ääd: with potato mash and apple sauce

5. Ähzezupp met Bröckelche

Split pea soup with croutons, and a winter dish through and through. The depth comes from cured pork: a salted ham hock or diced bacon simmered into the pot. The Bröckelche are cubes of stale white bread fried in fat until golden and scattered over the top just before serving.

What goes into a big pot

• 1 pound of dried green peas, soaked overnight
• About 1.5 to 2 quarts of water
• 1 salted ham hock
• 4 large potatoes and 2 carrots, diced
• 1 leek, 1 large onion, diced
• About 2 ounces of diced bacon
• 4 slices of stale white bread, fried in margarine as croutons

6. Brutzupp

Bread soup, and originally poor people's food, passed down in Rhineland families for generations. Stale bread, butter, raisins and a little cinnamon turn into a surprisingly comforting course. It has all but disappeared from restaurant menus, so if you see it, order it.

7. Hämmcher met Kappes

Ham hock with sauerkraut, the heaviest thing on the Rhineland table. Cured pork is braised for hours and served with sauerkraut, juniper and a splash of white wine. Eat this once in the Old Town and the small beer glass suddenly makes sense: the Kölsch is there to cut through the fat.

Per person

• 1 cured pork hock, about 14 ounces
• About 9 ounces of sauerkraut
• 2 juniper berries, 1 bay leaf, 1 clove, 4 peppercorns
• A quarter of a large onion, cut into wedges
• Salt, a little lard, a splash of white wine

8. Kölsche Pann

The Cologne pan: a leftovers dish where everything lands in one skillet. Potatoes, onions, bacon and eggs, plus whatever sausage or vegetables the kitchen has on hand. Like most dishes of this kind, it is frequently better the next day than the first time it was served.

9. Sauerbraten

The Rhineland classic best known outside Cologne, and the one American diners are most likely to have heard of. Beef is marinated at least two days in vinegar, water, onions, carrots, leek and spices, then braised slowly and finished in a sauce sweetened with raisins. The standard sides are potato dumplings and red cabbage. Sweet-and-sour beef sounds strange on paper and works completely on the plate.

What goes in, for four people

• About 2 pounds of beef, shoulder or round
• 1 pint of red wine vinegar and 1 pint of water
• 2 onions, 2 carrots, 1 leek
• 10 peppercorns, 3 bay leaves, 5 cloves
• Salt and pepper

10. Reibekuchen with toppings

The younger sibling of the Rievkooche: same batter, different treatments. Sweet with apple sauce or beet syrup, savory with dark bread and butter, or in a modern reading with smoked salmon and horseradish cream. This is the version you are most likely to meet at a Christmas market stall in December.

Drinking with the food

One beer accompanies all of this: Kölsch, pale, top-fermented and brewed only in and around Cologne. It comes in a slim 0.2-liter glass called a Stange, roughly 6.8 fluid ounces, and the Köbes will replace it again and again without asking. When you have had enough, set your cardboard coaster on top of the glass. That is the signal, and it is the only one that works reliably.

Frequently asked questions