retiredmartin

March 2026. Cologne. Germany.

Our first of 3 nights in Cologne; I knew I had to visit Gaststätte Lommerzheim (“Lommi’s“) at some point, why not now ? “It’s like the Hare and Hounds” I tell Matt.

Frankly, you queue for opening, either for lunch (11) or teatime (4.30), or you miss out. James and Matthew weren’t convinced by the appeal of standing outside a suspect looking building on an unpromising street for a quarter of an hour when nicer looking open options called out across the Rhine.

But as we chatted to two lads who’d travelled from Chicago (again !) with Lommies top of their list they began to succumb.

And then at 16:30 the back door (the one marked “Keller”) opened, leaving those of us staring at the front door to make a dash for a table.

Well done, James. A table for four, not quite the one I’d have loved with a view of the Paffgen barrel from 2022 (below),

but good enough.

Within two minutes that room was full, a mix of Japanese and American and English tourists, and the regulars.

Mrs RM loved the place in 2022, the boys fell for it now. The quality of the soft, dry Päffgen helps,

but this time I wanted to try the pub grub. We’d only had that lunch at Gaffel 3 hours back, but it was now or never. We’ll have a snack.

“What’s Mainzer Mainzer in Päffgen Kölsch eingelegt, Dad ?“.

I asked ChatGPT.

Well, **** you, ChatGPT. I’ll try Claude next time. Everyone knows Halve Hahn (“half a chicken“)” is actually cheese and onion cob/roll/bap, but who knew that a Mainzer isn’t actually a sausage,

it’s actually pieces of cheese cooked on Kolsch for 3 weeks with the constitution of placenta (that blob top left). Not that I’ve tried placenta, but I do read Mumsnet.

The answer, surely, was just to add lashings of mustard to whatever it was ? Nope, that’s a bad idea.

But Lommie’s will definitely be the pub the lads head to next time they’re in Cologne.