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.
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.
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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