The boss is still the boss, but now she is the boss, and it's about time: For fourteen years, Sigi Schelling was Hans Haas' right hand and good sister in spirit at the Munich gourmet institution "Tantris", nominally as sous-chef, in fact as a chef, at least in the end.

She wrote the menus, organized the shopping, managed the staff, took care of everything and was found by the boss, whom she still calls that with respect and the highest esteem, to be very good enough to succeed him.

But last July she had to jump into the cold water of self-employment after the operators of "Tantris" found the heir to the throne at the age of forties too old to inherit the boss.

Culinary destiny sometimes plays out so cruelly and so kindly.

Cooking without mirror fencing

Jakob Strobel and Serra

deputy head of the feature section.

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Because now Sigi Schelling is the boss of the "Werneckhof" in Schwabing and doesn't seem to be able to really understand how well life has been with her.

Within a very short time she has become the favorite of Munich's epicureans and is fully booked every evening, she can switch on her own stove as she pleases and since the day before yesterday she has also had her own Michelin star.

The restaurant, which with its wood paneling and stained glass panes undauntedly breathes the spirit of an Altschwabing tavern despite all the beauty treatments in contemporary design, is now the stage for a kitchen that gets along completely without fencing and gimmickry, follows neither a doctrine nor any fashions and their luck instead in the harmony of classic flavors and the art of impeccable craftsmanship.

A tuna, marinated and as a tartare, with passion fruit, coconut milk, shiitake and avocado, a duck liver, poached and grated, with cranberry ice cream, pickled apple, black truffle and brioche are enough as amuse-gueules for the certainty that in the "Werneckhof" no Jeanne d'Arc and certainly no Marianne of culinary art is in the kitchen, but a woman who wants nothing more than to cook as well as she learned to cook - and maybe even a little better than ever before.

Sigi Schelling can't help but stay true to herself, reinventions and smashing old ones aren't her thing.

The crustaceans – lobster, langoustine and shrimp of fabulous quality – she carefully shells, cooks very gently and leaves semi-raw so that they taste like the sea, not fire, combines them with chicory julienne, apple brunoise, a sour cream Yuzu terrine and a tapioca chip, easily finding the ideal balance of consistencies, temperatures and degrees of acidity.

The scallop gets an entourage of caviar, poached egg yolk and creams from cauliflower and smoked eel according to the old haute-cuisine school and still tastes not of antiquity but of timelessness.

And the baby monkfish, roasted whole, carved at the table and topped with bouillabaisse, curry puree, sepia noodles and fried monkfish skin, is the best proof of how uncomplicated refinement can be.

This is a kitchen without a headache, a pleasure without operating instructions, and the extremely lively atmosphere worthy of any pub shows that all guests feel that way.