Head north of Salt Lake City for authentic German food

Meals from Weller’s Bistro and pastries from Petra’s Backstubchen style identical to the previous nation.

Jan Weller and Petra Vigil immigrated to Utah from Germany many years aside. However now, the 2 cooks each run meals companies centered round their shared heritage — plus, they occur to be associates and help one another’s work.

The Vigils can usually be discovered at Jan’s restaurant in Layton, Weller’s Bistro, having fun with savory German specialties just like the schnitzel or rouladen. And Jan typically options desserts from Petra’s Backstubchen, Petra’s namesake bakery, on his specials menu.

Followers of genuine German meals can discover hearty meals and pastries that style identical to the previous nation by heading north to Weller’s Bistro, or one of many many places that promote baked items made by Petra’s Backstubchen.

The queen bee of bienenstich

“As a younger baby, I loved watching my mom bake,” Petra Vigil stated. She rapidly developed a ardour for baking and, at 18, purchased her first cookbook.

Finally, Vigil packed up her cookbooks and love of baking, left her hometown of Kliding, Germany, and traveled to Utah greater than 30 years in the past. She made her strudels and muffins from German recipes and would give them to family and friends. Nevertheless it wasn’t till her kids had been grown 20 years later that she and her husband, Joseph, rented a business kitchen and commenced promoting her pastries by the enterprise Petra’s Bachstubchen.

The couple has since constructed a food-grade kitchen within the basement of their house, and so they provide German pastries to a number of specialty shops in Utah in addition to repeatedly promote baked items at varied farmers markets and occasions.

Petra’s Backstubchen gives a number of kinds of flaky strudel, cake, cookies and creamy cheesecake, in addition to stollen for the vacations and chewy pretzels with candy and spicy mustard.

A number of gadgets that Vigil sells are made with recipes from that first cookbook she purchased years in the past.

Apart from her hard-to-come-by rhubarb cake, it’s Vigil’s conventional bienenstich kuchen (“bee sting cake”) that patrons return for week after week. The honey-drenched goodness of the bienenstich cake begins with two slices of candy yeast dough that’s sandwiched with wealthy, housemade German vanilla pudding and topped with honey-caramelized sliced almonds for crunch and texture. It’s bought by the slice ($5) or in a sheet cake ($50).

Vigil’s baked items can be found year-round at Lee’s Market places, each places of The Retailer and at Hill Air Drive Base a number of instances a month. This summer season, she may even be promoting her pastries on the Cache Valley Gardner’s Market in Logan each Saturday by Oct. 16, and on the Wheeler Farm Sunday Market each Sunday by Oct 17.

To order on-line and think about Vigil’s present menu, go to petrasbackstubchen.com.

Welcome to Layton’s ‘German place’

Chef Jan Weller, proprietor of Weller’s Bistro, didn’t initially open his restaurant as a German institution, recalling that he started providing a number of German dishes as specials. It solely took a number of months for purchasers to point that these delicacies had been precisely what they needed on daily basis.

“Actually, I didn’t count on individuals to get so enthusiastic about German delicacies,” Weller stated. “After a pair months in enterprise, we had been now the ‘German place’ on the town.”

Weller hails from Witten, Germany, and the present menu at Weller’s Bistro is reflective of that heritage. Most of the recipes have been in his household for generations—reminiscent of his grandfather’s hühnerfrikassee (rooster fricassee), which, as Weller was rising up, he would repeatedly assist him make.

As we speak, Weller makes use of Riesling wine as a part of the recipe to honor him—including authenticity to the veloute sauce-based entree of rooster breast and thigh, asparagus, mushrooms, peas and carrots. Though not as fashionable because the restaurant’s schnitzel, Weller feels that the hühnerfrikassee is a implausible illustration of German delicacies.

The whole lot at Weller’s Bistro is made in home, with only some exceptions. He makes use of his grandmother’s sauerkraut recipe “as a result of it’s excellent,” he stated. “We wash the sauerkraut 3 times and squeeze out the vinegar earlier than we add it to the pot to slow-cook for 3 1/2 hours.”

Equally, the signature apfelrotkohl (purple cabbage with apples) enjoys a four-hour slow-cooking course of to tenderize the 2 major substances as they simmer with onions, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, purple wine, cloves, juniper berries and bay leaves.

After working at a number of high-end motels and eating places in Utah, Weller was in a position to open his bistro in 2019. “It was a long-time dream come true for me,” he stated, whereas explaining that Weller’s Bistro doesn’t appear like friends may initially count on. “You gained’t discover hand-carved picket chairs, German folks music and servers in dirndls. As a substitute, I used plenty of metallic and reclaimed wooden components all through and made the inside considerably up to date.”

The restaurant could look extra trendy, however the conventional North Rhine-Westphalia meals will take you again in time.

Weller’s Bistro, 197 N. Essential St., Layton; 385-888-9531; www.facebook.com/wellersbistro

— Heather L. King owns www.slclunches.com and could be discovered on social media @slclunches.