INTERVIEW

From flower shop to restaurant – how did this transformation of the pavilion come about?
My father was the owner of the Engwicht nursery. Following the family tradition, I first trained as a gardener and then as a florist master. After a few years in Berlin I decided to come back to Forst (Lausitz). Here I wanted to restart the pavilion as a floristic shop. But the demand was not there during those years. So I found myself another line of work, this time at the “Forster Hof”. But in all that time I always wanted to make something out of the pavilion, that such an object was simply empty, I didn’t like it at all. So I was looking for new uses. I noticed that there was no small cafe, or rather small restaurant in Forst.
So I dragged my husband and father to the table and explained my vision. And we decided together, yes, let’s do that now.

Who are your typical customers?
My guests are mainly the older generation of the city, that was also always the target group I wanted a reliable clientele. I also like it cosy myself, like to have a coffee, have a chat here and there, and I don’t want it to be wild and loud. I wanted to create an atmosphere in my restaurant in which you can also come to rest. Wild it can be elsewhere, this is my new project in Park 7.

We’ll get back to that in a minute …

Regionality is the biggest thing at the moment, where does the food you offer come from?
We work a lot with regional partners, as far as possible, so meat products come from Forster butchers and my father’s market garden has a lot of fruit and vegetables in the summer that we use. Our menu then shows that too. We like to experiment, even with vegan food. Our guests also let themselves up to it, trying quinoa because they read somewhere that it’s supposed to be good.

So you don’t have the bog standard?
No, because you should always make something different from the various products. I’m curious what happens when I mix ingredients. Every cook is a creator, so the food doesn’t taste the same every day. We cannot and do not want to do that.

You do offer events on a regular basis, don’t you?
Our Talk im Pavillion with Lutz Hoff is very popular. Here we invite a celebrity and Lutz Hoff leads through the afternoon.