Ox & Klee: A Restaurant That Refuses to Follow the Herd

Daniel Gottschlich is a chef with a vision. He doesn’t know why he decided to become a chef and restaurant owner, but reflecting on his childhood he can see that he was always fascinated by the environment of eating out.

"My parents never really went to restaurants, they preferred to eat at home,” Gottschlich says. “On the rare occasions that we would go, I was always fascinated, sitting there looking at the menu, ordering, and people bring you what you want. The surroundings were completely different to what you are used to. It was very special. Now all these years later, I’m a restaurant owner."

Toffee: rhubarb, cherry blossom, barley miso, tagetes, umeboshi, sour cream

And not just the owner of any restaurant. Ox & Klee, in Cologne, is a uniquely creative restaurant that strives to push culinary boundaries and create a unique dining experience for its guests. At a time when external factors are forcing chefs to look at costs, to scale back menus and ingredients, Gottschlich is swimming against the tide and has instead gone bigger. The restaurant offers two menus, each with 15 courses; Ox is an animal-based menu, and Klee is plant-based. It’s an approach that fits with his philosophy and something that is reflected in the restaurant’s name, which came from an old Spanish proverb, which says ‘when the ox finds clover, the whole group is happy’.

Red Shiso: strawberry, valrhona jivara, hemp, sudachi, szechuan, skyr

“The name came 12 years ago. I tried to think about what I wanted to do,” he says. “The ox eats clover, it’s their favourite meal. So I thought about symbols and this was a beautiful picture, to have a strong ox in a beautiful green field filled with clover.

"I started with traditional German food, but I wanted to do it in a different way, to renew it. In the beginning, it was a tough decision to be self-employed and run my own business, but I had this vision."

Gottschlich is not short of ambition, like many chefs, but he is completely self-taught and chose to do it all himself. Apart from a period of apprenticeship 20 years ago, he never worked for another chef. He worked as a sous chef in a brew house, but it closed down. The day his boss informed him he had lost his job was the day he had found a restaurant that he wanted to take over.

Stick Bread: rowan berries, honey tomato, mole, buds, herb cheese, chives

"There was no culinary journey, really,” says Gottschlich. “I always wanted to have my own restaurant, but I never had the call, like many other chefs, that they want to go all over the world to learn from great chefs and maybe find fame themselves. For me, it was always just wanting to have my own business and be based in Cologne."

Many chefs choose to travel and learn from the best, but Gottschlich feels that taking on extra work to learn about new techniques and produce has served him well. He is free to experiment and find his own way.

Crustacean: spruce, juniper, Rouennaise sauce, charcoal, crispbread, lard

“When you learn from a big chef and have all these influences, then of course, you will make your own thing from that. But if you don’t have any of that, then it was always my thing to seek out new techniques, and new produce, to get my vision straight. Of course, maybe this was a little bit harder and it took me 12 years, but it’s still not over. I found something that I’m mostly satisfied with. I have a big team of 10 chefs and five people in service, so, I’m happy with what we do but we are always trying to reinvent ourselves.”

Whatever his approach, it has worked. The restaurant is well regarded both locally and internationally. Ox & Klee was awarded its first Michelin star in 2015. At that time the restaurant was a small place, with only 10 tables with a very easy vibe.

Pretzel: px vinegar, medlar, lye, broccoli, sesame, nut butter

“People would come and they would say ‘excuse me, this is not a Michelin-star restaurant',” he says. “So I started to try and make it fit more into the Michelin story… before I realised that it was all bullshit, and threw away all the white tablecloths, and did again what I wanted to do. You have to stay true to your vision. I have realised many times in my career, and said: ‘Man, what are you doing? Get back on track'.

“I was depressed when we first got the star. I always wanted to change my rooms, but I got so depressed because I wanted to go further, I wanted to take a different path. I needed to realise why I was so depressed… there was this need to take the restaurant and make it bigger. Not for anyone else, just for me. To leave my comfort zone and to develop myself.”

Nose to Tail: bitter cucumber, melon, olive, black lime, salt lemon, cottage cheese

So Gottschlich moved to a new location, expanded and took on more staff. That itself presented a new challenge. He had to go from a small team, working 14 hours a day, to a new role, something that allowed him to implement a new form of leadership.

“I need to learn the hard way. In the beginning, when we changed location to a bigger place, it overwhelmed me – everybody was looking to me for the next thing. At that point, I had to separate a little bit from the group to get an overview of how to lead. You need to see what’s needed now, so you don’t have too many pots on the stove.

"To learn that from being 14 hours or more in the kitchen cooking, to get more of a sense of what you need to do in the future, or how to handle all these personalities in the kitchen – it’s hard because business is hard and everything is always on fire."

“The guys are super motivated because they know what my vision is. We are not that well-known yet, but I want that when people come, they enjoy it. When people come from other countries or wherever, that they have this crazy experience. This is the goal to get people into the restaurant and have food theatre. It’s a lot of work – sometimes it takes hundreds of hours, and is also expensive when you want to have a special dish that is totally different – but it’s special.

“I have spoken to guests who have eaten at some of the best restaurants in the world, and they always find something in our restaurant that they never come across before. For me, this is the best, because it makes the work worth it."

If that wasn’t enough, Gottschlich has also opened another restaurant, PVLS, a gastro bar in Cologne. The name is a reference to ancient Rome, which founded the city. The bar is set in a boutique hotel, which uncovered the ruins of the ancient Roman city wall.

“We have a little twist of ancient Roman traditional dishes into our creative plates. PVLS was a dish served, especially in the legion, like porridge, and we also have a cooked cereal, we use coriander as they [the Romans] did, and we make our own garums, which of course the Romans loved.”

There seem to be no limits to what Gottschlich can achieve, Ox & Klee today holds two Michelin stars. The chef’s combination of a hard-work ethic, creativity and a clear vision means this business will remain very much in the clover.