The Travel Critic

It has, I realise, been something of a week of cliché for anyone who’s been masochistic enough to read my recent reviews. A dreary parade of the obvious, the tried and tested, the meat-and-potatoes (and sauerkraut) of travel food writing. And I’m not about to let you off the hook just yet, because this sorry trajectory continued, unrepentant, with a visit to Cologne. Germany.

Now, I adore the Germans. They’re essentially the British, but with better punctuality, better trains, and worse weather. Like us, they love football, beer, and meat, although they at least have the decency to admit it. On this trip, I managed to tick all three. There was a football stadium (tick), many, many beers (double tick), and enough meat to choke a Bavarian stag party.

And the scene for this gastronomic box-ticking? Gilden Im Zims. A grand old beer hall on the main square of Cologne. The sort of place that smacks you round the chops with its authenticity, gives you a bear hug of Gemütlichkeit, and plonks a litre of something cold, amber, and foaming in front of you before you’ve even taken off your bobble hat.

Though, being Cologne, these weren’t litres but the local Kölsch, which arrives in slim, delicate 0.2L glasses — a little frilly, yes, but the genius of it is they just keep bloody coming. Like a German efficiency algorithm had been let loose on the beer taps. Before you even notice the glass is empty, another appears in its place. It’s like beer Tetris.

And what did I eat? Well, if you think I went to a traditional Cologne beer house and didn’t order the Schweinshaxe (that’s pork knuckle to the English), you’ve clearly mistaken me for someone who owns a vegan cookbook. It arrived like Excalibur — a monstrous hunk of pig with a knife jammed through the top, daring you to pull it out and declare yourself King of the Pork People.

And the thing was magnificent. The crackling shattered like sugar glass, the meat inside soft, fatty, and gloriously porcine, all slicked in a deep, savoury gravy that made me want to take off my shirt and rub it all over myself. Not that anyone would have blinked in a place like this. Inside, it straddles the line between the modern and the medieval with unnerving precision — all dark woods, gleaming brass, and the gentle hum of people slowly but inevitably slipping into a beer coma.

Service? Spot on. Friendly without the forced jollity you get in some places, fast without being aggressive. They know their beer, they know their pig, they know their people.

So if you find yourself in Cologne, and you want football, beer, meat, and an evening where you won’t have to make a single decision (apart from whether to undo your belt before or after dessert), Golden in Zima is your spot.