German in Denver

The building looks like a Tyrolean inn, and the food, especially the German fare, is a favorite of homesick Europeans. Service at the Black Bear Inn is top-notch, as is the traditional schnitzel and the yummy apple strudel.

Zdenek Srom opened Bohemian Biergarten, his European-style beer garden, in spring 2013 at the Boulder address that once housed Trilogy. And although this place is very unlike that legendary spot in many ways, like Trilogy, it focuses on creating community. A community of people who enjoy good beer and hearty food to go with it. A community of people who appreciate live music, which Bohemian offers. And, above all, a community of people who simply like hanging out together at a cool, casual gathering place.

Cafe Berlin opened in 1995 on East 17th Avenue, giving Denver a go-to spot for hearty German fare. A lot has changed since 1995 -- for example, the restaurant is now in its third location, a second-floor space above the 16th Street Mall, where it moved in 2011 – but Cafe Berlin’s food has not. Eating in the spacious gold-and-burgundy dining room, you could be back in the ’90s, chuckling at Bubba, toting around a boombox and eating the same gravy-covered schnitzel. German-born Marlene Garrett purchased the restaurant from its founder in 1998, but she’s been a presence in the kitchen from the beginning, and under her culinary and managerial leadership, Cafe Berlin has successfully navigated a generation of boom-and-bust economies. It’s done so by playing it safe; this is not a place where you’re going to find creative variations on German classics. The jägerschnitzel and rouladen are your best bets for dinner, with housemade apple strudel for dessert.

Step inside the dining room of this tiny, quaint Lakewood eatery and you'll feel as if you're in small-town Germany, where family cooks turn out humble, hearty plates sided with a little conversation. Gaby Berben has been peddling her homestyle cooking for years at Denver festivals and special events, and in 2018 she settled into a small kitchen with just a few seats, where you can enjoy sauerbraten, spätzle and cabbage rolls, among other traditional German dishes. Stop in for the daily special (Thursday is chef's surprise!), but be sure to start with soup (like Gaby's own carrot-coconut-ginger) and save room for dessert from a rotating selection of pastries.

Helga's German Restaurant & Deli offers customers many tastes of Deutschland, with a selection of meats, cheese, breads and baked goods, as well as European chocolates, candy, music and magazines. Helga's opened its doors in 1989 as a four-table restaurant, and over the past twenty years has grown into a combo deli, bakery and restaurant seating 160 people, with an outdoor patio that adds another twenty seats. The menu features fresh, house-baked pretzels and traditional strudel (apple and cherry are always available), bratwurst from local Continental Sausage, and seven German beers on tap -- perfect to fill the two-liter beer boot. And if dishes like spicy breaded-pork schnitzel fingers with dipping sauce or charbroiled ham hocklets for two served with potato salad and sauerkraut just aren't enough food, the all-you-can-eat schnitzel deal every Wednesday should fill you up.

For more than thirty years, Karl's FF Delicatessen has hawked extraordinary things out of its ordinary, Centennial strip-mall address. A small market features a vast array of imported treats, including jams, chocolates and cookies. The deli serves up a board of old-world-style sandwiches, featuring thinly shaved beef tongue, head cheese and bierwurst, plus specials that include wiener schnitzel, veal bratwurst and spaetzle. There’s Hungarian goulash on Fridays, and a wurst platter that changes daily. All of these dishes pair with tart sauerkraut and some of the best potato salad we've had in the city. As a bonus, the place pours Paulaner on tap — and honors free refills on beers all day Friday and Saturday, which are best enjoyed on the shady, beer-garden-like patio.

Prosit is an unassuming little beer hall tucked among the trendy bars and hipster joints on West 32nd Avenue, in the space formerly held by Asian-Mexican spot BOA. Decked out in dark wood with Bavarian-inspired touches, Prosit may just fool you into thinking you're in Munich as you relax at the long, bierhall-style table or in the large biergarten out back. Prosit, which opened in the summer of 2014, has a full kitchen and a menu that boasts a selection of fourteen different sausages, including veal bratwurst, the brewery's signature Oktoberfest beer-and-pork brat, and a Buffalo-green-chile-and-chipotle sausage.

Seattle import Rhein Haus took over the former Old Chicago space in LoDo in late 2015, adding a second floor, beautiful Teutonic bars in dark, ornate woods and indoor bocce for those who can't sit down with their stein of German lager. But you should sit down, whether at the bar or a booth, for a full-on meal of northern European specialties, including a handful of housemade sausages, cheesy spaetzle or the intimidating Schweinschaxe. No, that's not the name of your towering, blond-braided waitress; it's an oven-roasted pork shank the size of your head that even the most robust Gunters and Gretels will have a tough time finishing.

Eating in this museum of kitsch is like dining inside a cuckoo clock -- one that smells faintly of beer and boiled cabbage and echoes with oompah music. But if you can get past the Old World shlock, you'll enjoy fantastic views and food that's primarily Germanic (with the occasional detour into other Eastern European classics), uncompromisingly good, unstintingly traditional, as rich and laden with butter, flour, fat and cream as it is larded with history.