Last updated: November 10, 2020

International Eats

The restaurant: Located on Lancaster Highway in the southern tip of Mecklenburg County, right next to the birthplace of James K. Polk, is the steep-roofed, stucco exterior of the Waldhorn Restaurant. Vaguely Teutonic in style, the building conjures up images from The Sound of Music and the German pavilion at Epcot. Above the wooden front doors there’s a sign that reads: Herzlich Wilkommen zum Waldhorn, Welcome to the Waldhorn. The inside does its best to replicate the interior of a Bavarian beer hall. There’s lots of exposed timbers, unironically dated booths and tables from the ’90s, and flags and banners advertising many of Germany’s greatest beers.  The dining room isn’t exactly the Hofbrauhaus, but it has a charm of its own that relaxes and transports you to a different time and place. Traditional folk songs like “Edelweiss” and raucous accordion oom-pah classics are piped through the restaurant’s sound system. They might even play Wayne Newton’s “Danke Schoen” if you ask nicely. 

The cuisine: German food, along with British cooking, has long been the culinary punching bag of Europe. Considered basic, overly meat-centric, too tradition-bound, and unhealthy, Germanic foodways have been neglected for far too long. What it lacks in technique it makes up for in sheer pleasurable flavors. It is certainly protein-centric, and it isn’t exactly averse to lots of fatty and rich ingredients, but couldn’t the same be said of French cuisine? German stewed meats, thinly pounded and fried veal and pork, slow-cooked purple cabbage and apples, handmade egg noodles — what isn’t to like? The Germans also gave the world the gift of classic sausages like bratwurst, knockwurst, and bauernbratwurst. Perhaps more than any culinary legacy, German beer-making traditions have touched nearly every part of the world from Tsingtao lager in China to Antarctica pilsen in Brazil and Negra Modelo Munich dunkel in Mexico. Crisp, clean lagers, refreshingly light pilsners, and dark dunkel beers are a balanced pairing for heavy, savory German cooking. 

Our must-order: My preferred way to start any meal at the Waldhorn is with the delightfully named kartoffelpuffer, German potato pancakes with applesauce. It’s as enjoyable to eat as it is to pronounce. Crispy, dense, well-seasoned, and not overly greasy, these potato pancakes are a comfort food that gets you ready for the richness of the main course. The Waldhorn sampler is the best way to get a little bit of everything the restaurant does well and is large enough to feed two, though with each additional bite you may find yourself not wanting to share it. The sampler is crowded with a crispy, generous-sized portion of wienerschnitzel, a glistening bratwurst shiny with fat, and a dense piece of beef roulade swimming in a gravy bath sit alongside a pile of spaetzle — German egg noodles — and red cabbage. The platter’s diversity of textures and flavors show off the best of German gastronomy, from the fried pork cutlet of the schnitzel lashed with lemon juice to the snap and porky aroma of the bratwurst, and finally to the pickle, onion, and bacon wrapped tightly with beef and doused in savory gravy for the beef roulade. It’s Deutschland on a plate.

Why we go: It’s harder than it should be to find good German food in Charlotte. To put it more bluntly: Waldhorn is about the only place in Mecklenburg County to find good German food. Gitta Maier, one of the owners, grew up in Germany and trained to become a professional chef near Stuttgart. That experience and professionalism shows in every aspect of the meal, starting with the fresh baked pretzel rolls and European butter brought to your table when you sit down, to the homemade apfelstrudel coated in a hefty blanket of powdered sugar served with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream for dessert. The Waldhorn never settles into kitsch, and it never allows the food to suffer from the fact that it is the only German place in town. Grab a beer stein of Spaten or Warsteiner, let the German folk music wash over you, and enjoy the classic Germanic cooking Waldhorn does best.