Hamburg's working-class roast-beef sandwich is a round bread roll filled with thinly-sliced roast beef and gravy, served warm and dripping. The probable ancestor of the modern hamburger.
Where to eat it: 2 restaurants across 1 city.
Rundstueck Warm originated in 19th-century Hamburg as a working-class harbour-worker lunch, slices of roast beef in a round bread roll (Rundstueck) with the cooking gravy poured over. The dish gives Hamburg its name-share with the modern hamburger; food historians trace the hamburger via German immigrants to New York and to Texas in the 1880s. The original Rundstueck Warm is now rare; the Old Commercial Room and a handful of traditional taverns still serve it.
Common allergens: Gluten
Tip from the editors. The gravy must be hot enough to soak the bread; this is the point of the dish.
This is the TableJourney editorial recipe, modelled on the canonical bistro / counter version. The first place to try the dish in its city of origin is below.
Old Commercial Room opposite the Michel in Hamburg has cooked Hanseatic harbour food since 1795 and is the city's canonical Labskaus address.
Order: The Original Hamburger Labskaus with fried egg, herring, beetroot and gherkin.
Tip: Open daily; lunch tables more available than dinner. Cash welcome but cards accepted.
Deichgraf on the historic Deichstrasse in Hamburg cooks classical Hanseatic dishes on the city's oldest canal-side street, with a single beam from the pre-1842 building surviving in the Fleetdiele dining room.
Why locals love it: On the Deichstrasse canal-side row rebuilt after the 1842 fire, that most tourists walk past.
Tip: Window tables face the Nikolaifleet canal. Ask for the Labskaus with the original Rollmops topping.
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