There is a particular honesty in where a chef chooses to eat when the service is over and the whites are off. No professional obligation, no networking, no one to impress. Just hunger and preference. I asked five of Hamburg's most respected chefs a simple question: where do you go on your night off?
Not one of them named their own restaurant. Most didn't name restaurants at all, at least not in the way you might expect.
Katharina Wolff — Hobenköök
Katharina Wolff runs one of Hamburg's most committed farm-to-table kitchens, a place where every ingredient has a provenance story and every dish is built around seasonal availability. So it might surprise you that her go-to late-night meal is a Döner from a tiny shop on Lange Reihe in St. Georg.
"I spend all day thinking about where food comes from," she says. "By midnight, I just want something that tastes good and arrives fast. This place makes their own bread, the meat is properly seasoned, and the salad is always fresh. That is more than enough."
The shop she's referring to — she asked me not to name it, worried about what attention might do to a place she relies on — has been run by the same family for over fifteen years. It closes at 2 a.m. Wolff says she is often the last customer.
Henrik Paulsen — Former Head Chef, Jellyfish
Paulsen, who left Jellyfish in late 2024 to work on a still-unannounced project, has a more structured approach. His night off means a reservation — always alone, always at the bar — at Zipang, a small izakaya in Eimsbüttel that most people walk past without noticing.
"I like eating at the counter because you can watch someone cook who genuinely does not care whether you're impressed," Paulsen explains. "The yakitori there is better than anything I've had in Düsseldorf, and I say that as someone who spent two years in Japan."
"When you cook for other people six nights a week, the meal you cook for yourself — or the meal you choose for yourself — becomes the most honest thing you do." — Henrik Paulsen, in conversation with Hafenguide
Ana Ribeiro — Casa do Largo
Ribeiro runs one of the Portuguese Quarter's most beloved kitchens, a place where the bacalhau is as good as anything you would find in Porto. Her night off, however, takes her in a completely different direction: she goes to Karoviertel and eats Vietnamese.
"There's a place on Marktstraße, very small, maybe eight tables. The pho is extraordinary. I've been going there since before I opened Casa do Largo. The woman who runs it — she knows what she's doing with broth the way my grandmother knew what she was doing with fish. You can't teach that."
Ribeiro's recommendation is Pho Saigon, which has operated from the same location since 2011. The beef pho takes four hours to prepare. It costs nine euros. Ribeiro orders it every time.
Jan Matthiesen — Baro Kitchen
Matthiesen's answer was the most unexpected. The chef behind one of Ottensen's most inventive tasting menus spends his nights off cooking at home. Specifically, he makes the same dish every Monday: scrambled eggs, dark bread, and a beer.
"I know it sounds boring," he says, and then pauses. "Actually, no, I don't think it's boring at all. I spend all week making food that's meant to surprise people. On Monday, I want food that doesn't surprise me. Scrambled eggs are perfect because you know exactly what you're going to get, and if you do them properly, they're still satisfying every single time."
He uses eggs from a farm in Vierlanden. He scrambles them low and slow in butter. He has strong opinions about salt timing. He would not elaborate further.
Mira Ozdemir — Speicherstadt Kantine
Ozdemir oversees one of Hamburg's busiest lunch services — a canteen-style kitchen in the Speicherstadt that serves three hundred covers a day. Her nights off are about silence and simplicity. She walks to a small wine bar in the Schanzenviertel, orders whatever is open by the glass, and eats cheese.
"No menu, no decisions. Whatever they pour me, whatever cheese they put on the board. I eat it, I drink it, I walk home. That's the whole evening."
The wine bar, Glas, opened in late 2023 and focuses on natural wines from small European producers. The cheese is sourced from a single farm in Schleswig-Holstein. Ozdemir says she has never been disappointed.
What These Choices Have in Common
Five very different chefs, five very different answers, but a clear thread runs through all of them: the desire for food that is made with care by someone who isn't trying to prove anything. Not a single one mentioned Michelin stars, tasting menus, or the newest opening in town. What they want, after a week of feeding others, is to be fed — simply, honestly, and without ceremony.
That might be the most useful restaurant advice anyone can give.