Is this ordinary city in Germany really an Asian food hotspot? Ja!
Dusseldorf might not be the first place you’d think of to sample award-winning Asian cuisine, but you’d be wrong. Prathap Nair explores its surprising culinary roots
Düsseldorf wears only one of its personalities on its sleeve – the German one. But the other, hidden in plain sight, is just as rewarding. Between its art galleries and museums, this city on the Rhine in west Germany offers a curious blend of European culture and Asian hospitality, thanks to a diverse demographic that’s 20 per cent international.
Leafy parks, riverside promenades, whimsical architecture with a healthy mix of the traditional and the modern, the trademark needle of a TV tower spire reaching skyward, and even a charming castle in pastel pink – it bears all the hallmarks of a successful mid-size German city. But just under Düsseldorf’s glossy veneer of orderliness, customary of German planning, there’s just enough room for organised chaos.
When I moved to the city in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, I was struck by the 26 (and counting) museums and upwards of 100 galleries and ateliers, an opera house, a concert hall and a ballet. One week I saw a Claudia Schiffer-curated exhibition about Nineties fashion photography; the next, I strolled into a chic brutalist building that houses the city’s prominent museum, K20, to see a Piet Mondrian retrospective. For a city of its size with a population of a little more than half a million, it seemed culturally very rich.
The city’s patronage of culture has inspired expats to embark on interesting missions. One of them is Fiona Leonard, a playwright and author, who conducts a feminist walking tour of the city. Strolling the old town’s cobblestone-studded streets under Leonard’s wing means seeing a side of the city’s character that would remain otherwise elusive to the casual visitor.
Her tours traverse the city’s important landmarks where the statues are, according to her, mostly “dead white men on horses.” But because she views history through the lens of feminism, her audience gets to understand figures like Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, the last of the Medicis who was married to the founder of Düsseldorf, Johann Wilhelm II, and was crucial in making the city a European cultural hotspot.
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Leonard’s tour also takes in the origins of Anne of Cleves, born in the city, who went on to become King Henry VIII’s fourth wife and thereby the queen of England.
Your craving for art, culture and feminist history sated, it’s time to tuck into regional German specialties like Senfbraten (mustardy steak medallions) and Schweinshaxe (crispy pork knuckles smothered in brown beer gravy). Like any self-respecting German city worth its salt, Düsseldorf has its own beer, the copper-coloured malty stout called altbier. I prefer mine at Brauerei Kürzer for its rustic interiors and convivial vibes, where the only thing on the tap is altbier, served in half-pint glasses for just €2.50.
But no other German city holds a candle to Düsseldorf’s Asian food. Japanese companies looking to expand globally discovered the business-friendly policies of the Ruhr region in the Sixties and moved here, resulting in a substantial Japanese population.
Hospitality businesses started moving in gradually, and a whole neighbourhood called Little Tokyo came into existence, whose streets are chock-a-block with ramen restaurants, Izakayas, manga bookstores and Japanese bakeries. The city now hosts two Michelin-starred Japanese restaurants, both run by chef Yoshizumi Nagaya.
Two decades ago, when he moved to Düsseldorf and opened a Kaiseki – a traditional Japanese full-service restaurant – Nagaya realised there weren’t many takers. There were difficulties in procuring ingredients from Japan, let alone dealing with the hassles related to importing into Germany.
Each restaurant has a chef’s special on their menu and you need to be an insider to know that detail
Today, his cuisine has evolved into a delicate mélange of Japanese and European fusion. “I wanted to find a middle ground. The backbone of my cuisine is still Japanese, but I use European cuisine as a canvas,” he says. I ask for tips for finding good ramen in the city and Nagaya reassures me that one can step out and confidently walk into any Japanese restaurant knowing the famed noodles in broth will be excellent.
The same can be said about Düsseldorf’s Chinese cuisine, which is so popular that many Chinese tourists make a pitstop here to have their fill, even if Düsseldorf isn’t top on their list of European destinations.
Over shimmering orange ma-la broth sloshing in our bowls on a sunny April afternoon at the newly opened Olala Malatang restaurant, Meijun Zhou, who plans to start a local Asian food tour business, tells me that the diversity in Chinese food can be deceptive. “Because the chefs come from different regions of China, not everything on a menu would always be exceptional. Each restaurant has a chef’s special on their menu and you need to be an insider to know that detail,” she says.
We top off our meal with a taro bun at newly opened Chinese bakery Baobao, whose interior smells of sesame-flavoured shortbread cookies. Admittedly, it doesn’t have the frenzied bakery-popup queues of NYC, but for a mid-tier German city dealing in brioche loafs filled with matcha sticky rice and black sesame, Baobao’s game is on-point.
The Asian cultural influence further manifests in different ways in the city. One weekend in May, the streets transform into an open-air cosplay museum. The Japanese carnival, called The Japan Tag, is where the cosplay fantasies of young Europeans come to life. It’s a weekend of zen-infused gentle debauchery, with young people dressing up as their favourite manga characters and roaming the streets. On the river promenade, trained professionals perform Japanese martial arts on stages, musical acts from Japan land in the city, stalls peddle everything from Japanese Tele-tubbies to ramen and the day culminates with fireworks.
Debauchery at street festivals notwithstanding, my favourite summertime activity is riding my bike along the Rhine to Kaiserswerth, a languidly flat, 10km stretch with views of sheep grazing on the Rhine meadows that terminates at the Roman ruins of Kaiserpfalz.
Last summer, I sat at the ruins, transformed into an amphitheatre, and watched a sold-out production of Romeo and Juliet staged by the city’s English Theatre. It was a modern interpretation of the bard’s play with two women in the lead; I watched as swallows circled overhead and listened as the soft laughter of patrons from the nearby biergarten threatened to break the fourth wall the actors had so earnestly constructed.
It felt like the perfect metaphor for Düsseldorf: a progressive city, inclusive in nature, and unapologetically welcoming of new ideas.
Travel essentials
Getting there
Trying to fly less?
Düsseldorf is a roughly three-hour train ride from Brussels and a four-hour train from Paris. Taking the Eurostar to either Brussels or Paris and switching to a Thalys train is the most convenient and hassle-free option.
Fine with flying?
British Airways and Eurowings fly to Düsseldorf direct from the UK in around 1hr25m.
Staying there
Stay in one of the studios at city-centre office building turned boutique hotel, Henri Hotel. It features retro chic interiors reminiscent of the Seventies and a spa, and is a stone’s throw away from the main attractions of the city.
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