Rote Gruetze appears as a signature dish in 2 Germany cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Rote Gruetze · Berlin
Rote Gruetze is the summer Berlin and northern German dessert: a thickened compote of red summer fruits (raspberry, redcurrant, cherry, strawberry) served warm or cold with vanilla cream.
Rote Gruetze (literally red groats) takes its name from the 16th-century practice of binding the fruit compote with semolina or oat groats. The modern Berlin and Schleswig-Holstein version uses cornflour instead. The dish is the canonical Brandenburg summer dessert: a use-up for the red fruit glut of June and July from Werder's strawberry farms and the local raspberry and currant patches. By tradition, every Berlin Gartenrestaurant serves Rote Gruetze through the summer season; the vanilla-cream pour (Vanillesauce) is non-negotiable. Lutter und Wegner has plated the version unchanged since the 1990s; many Berlin bakeries sell the jam-jar take-away version year-round.
Where to eat in Berlin:
- Lutter und Wegner
- Borchardt
- Lokal
Rote Gruetze · Hamburg
Rote Gruetze is the north German red-berry pudding, a thickened compote of red currants, raspberries, cherries and strawberries served cold with vanilla cream or milk.
Rote Gruetze dates to 17th-century North German peasant cooking, when the late-summer berry harvests overlapped. The Hamburg version uses red currants, raspberries, cherries and strawberries thickened with potato starch (formerly with semolina); served cold with vanilla cream, vanilla sauce or full-cream milk. Every Hamburg dessert menu in July and August carries Rote Gruetze; Old Commercial Room and Deichgraf use the canonical Hamburg recipe.
Where to eat in Hamburg:
- Old Commercial Room
- Deichgraf
- Fischereihafen Restaurant