Three years ago, it was a big surprise: the pop-up in Weigelt's Kochkontor - i.e. in a kitchen studio. It's no longer a surprise, but it's still good - no: very good. The team, with Torsten Beyer as the entertaining chef at the stove in the spacious show kitchen (where else would this be possible if not in a kitchen studio?) and the Weigelt family as the attentive service with professional quality, send their guests off into the night as usual after a relaxed evening. The four-course menu (plus amuse bouche, more on that in a moment) was accompanied by a moderated wine pairing: Steffen Hanelt, area sales manager at Winzergenossenschaft Meißen, presented the wines he had selected to accompany the individual courses.
The evening started with a Scheurebe sparkling wine, which the cooperative produces in two styles: brut (with 11.1 g/l sugar) and dry (with 23.2 g/l sugar). Both won the silver medal at the German Wine Awards. We were allowed to try the dry version - and for those who preferred non-alcoholic: there was also a sparkling rosé from the cooperative offshoot Meißner Weinmanufaktur - as (almost) always with non-alcoholic wines, not really low in sugar (60 g/l!), but: tasty! And where the winemakers greet us with sparkling wine, the kitchen also sends something delicious: "This is basically a matjes salad without matjes!" Torsten Beyer introduced the course - a great apple (in this case a Gala) and wasabi mayonnaise. A fish-free fake and actually quick to make. But to keep things simple, there was also a scoop of smoked cream cheese mousse with pumpernickel hidden inside. And because Mr. Beyer likes to play with his guests, he called it "a hearty straciatella!" - knowing full well that most people understand this to mean the ice cream and not the cheese (clarification here).
If the foreplay is to die for...
If the foreplay is to die for - the question is of course: can the chef keep up the standard? And will he follow through with his preference for smoked meats (spoiler: not in all the courses, but he couldn't do without them)? And how will the wines go with it? Because when the dishes are full of different flavors, it's not easy to find the right wine. And we promptly started with a very difficult task: goose liver terrine | wild shrimp | pineapple | brioche is a thoroughly unusual combination - even if it is based on a tried and tested culinary pattern, namely combining meat with crustaceans. In classic surf'n'turf, this is often beef fillet and lobster, but here in this starter, (unstuffed) foie gras meets wild-caught prawns. When I think of foie gras, I think of full-bodied sweet wines, but when I think of prawns, I think of light, dry white wines. And then there's pineapple! I would have gone for a dry Traminer, but it came with a dry Müller-Thurgau. The prawn thanked me! On the plate - visually tidy and appealing as always - was the deconstruction of a childhood memory of the chef. "During my training, my master had always prepared foie gras and lobster in a terrine," Torsten Beyer revealed. He chose a stuffing-free liver (the animals didn't suffer - and cream and butter in the recipe helped to pimp up the normal liver), treated the pineapple until it was fibre-free and used something that looked like Nudossi or Nutella under the prawn - but wasn't: fermented black garlic deceived the eye and delighted the palate all the more (the sweet stuff really wouldn't have worked!).
The soup course was a revelation in many respects. The soup was what the menu simply called celeriac | smoked eel | pickled egg yolk. Eel, now sinfully expensive, was only served in comparatively small pieces, with the main flavor coming from the head, bones and skin. "You have to be crazy - in a positive sense - to make something like this!" the chef confessed. But that's what sets him apart from many others, where things have to be done quickly: Torsten Beyer spares no effort in the preparation to tease the right taste out of the products. His efforts were rewarded with a hearty consommé. The broth then contained celeriac that had been puréed with lots of butter, fillet pieces of eel and a crunchy dish of baked kale - the East Frisian heart beat faster. Egg yolks that had been pickled for a week and then dried and freshly grated (Großenhainer Golddotter) added the final color and flavor. Sensational. The accompanying wine was a 2023 Sauvignon Blanc, which was in the slightly tart range - but which went quite well with the powerhouse of the soup.
Cooking is more craft than technique
So there is a lot of craft involved, as you could hear from the chef's announcements. And time. "There shouldn't be anything that takes longer to cook than it takes to eat!" one guest confessed his cooking philosophy at home. There's not really much to it, but his commitment to eating out in the evening as a solution to the problem helps the local economy to survive. Apart from that, there was also a sense (despite the venue being a kitchen studio, where there is no shortage of technology...) that modern appliances often help, but do not make up the soul of the food: "The classic recipes are over a hundred years old - there were only the simplest ovens!" But clever minds...
Saxon red wine - described by Steffen Hanelt as a marginal product - with the main course: a "smooth Domina". This almost one-hundred-year-old variety is indeed not often found in Saxony, but in Franconia you can taste amazingly good wine from this cross between Pinot Noir and Blauer Portugieser. The Meissen Domina was from the 2023 vintage - as a consumer, you almost have to be grateful that there was so little wine in 2024 (which wasn't good for the winemakers, of course) - but this way, it's finally not just the current vintages that are on the table. And the warehouses were also full after a good harvest in 2023 (everything was good again in 2025...). The wine was at the upper end of the dry range, but this was quite pleasant as an accompaniment to the shovel cut, which cooked for 48 hours at 60 degrees and thus came to the table tender as butter. The sauce probably took even longer, as concentrated as it tasted.
A double dessert was then provided for the second stomach: one in liquid form, an ice wine. Harvested at 2.30 a.m. on January 9, 2024 (but is still a 23 vintage in terms of wine law) at -11 degrees. The grape variety is Cabernet Blanc, a new variety with potential - also for hanging to produce ice wine. 204 g of residual sugar per liter is a lot, but enough to make you want to have another pour. A chocolate shock came from the kitchen, with white and dark chocolate, passion fruit and mocha ice cream. Together with the wine, a combination you could get used to...
Menu
- Goose liver terrine | wild shrimp | pineapple | brioche
- Celeriac | smoked eel | pickled egg yolk
- US shovel cut 48-60 | shallot | bimi | potato
- chocolate | passion fruit | coffee
Wine accompaniment
- "Benno von Meißen" sparkling wine Scheurebe dry AWC Gold DLG Silver
- 2023 Müller-Thurgau dry quality wine, Meissen DLG Silver
- 2023 Sauvignon Blanc quality wine, Meissen range
- 2023 Domina quality wine, Meissen DLG Silver range
- 2023 Cabernet Blanc ice wine Meissen DLG Gold range - Pioneers of Wine Gold
Info
- Menu incl. wine and beverage accompaniment Wine and beverage accompaniment 119 €
Weigelts Kochkontor
Küchen Weigelt
Dresdner Straße 11
01796 Pirna
Tel. +49 3501 446483
mehr-als-kueche.de
[Visited on February 19, 2026]
