Kaiserbahnhof - Brühl

Summer time means season for restaurants with the opportunity sitting outside! Being there at 20:30 it seemed that the service like to shut down and the willingness to happily serve was rather low.Anyhow the menu was small and with a wide selection.Wood was finally a decent quality and therefore partially over-priced. However the area is nice and if you visit Brühl via train it is worth having a stopover.

We visited this restaurant several times before and we decided to have brunch there on Easter Monday. I reserved a table via phone a week previous to our visit. The staff member answering the phone was not sure when the “brunch” starts or if they even had it; even though it was advertised on their own website. After holding for several minutes she took our reservation and told us the brunch starts at 10:00 o’clock.We arrived at the restaurant on time. Our reservation was lost. But they had a table for us. At the table the waitress explained the brunch to us: “The brunch here consist of two buffets. The breakfast buffet, which is until 12:00 o’clock and the lunch buffet, which will start at 12:00 o’clock.” This was not what we expected. We expected brunch. Not a breakfast and a lunch. Guest who arrived after us were also confused. Nobody here understood the way they understood the word "brunch". We also now understood the confusion of the employee taking our reservation. The breakfast buffet itself was below average. The refilling of the buffet was slow. A lot of offerings were constantly unavailable. The buffet was only refilled in very small portions. It gave us the feeling that they did not have enough food to serve or they want to maximise profit at all cost. There were menus on the table explaining the buffets offerings, but they did not have the correct pricing. As we got the bill it was explained to us that the Easter breakfast came with an Easter “surcharge” of 3 Euros per person. The menu quoted the price without surcharge. If I combine all the past experiences with what happened at the brunch I come to the following conclusion: This restaurant is for you if you are looking for a nice location with good food (except the buffet breakfast). You do not mind sub standard service staff, and that not everything on the menu is available.

We visited recently for brunch, which was very good, as was the service. And it was "special offer" day too! We could not wish for more.

We had reserved a table for 10 people in January, food, drinks and service were great until 10:00, then we were thrown out of the restaurant. According to the website, the restaurant is open until 23:00. That's what we left. Then just to make an evening, we all didn't find great, especially since we made sales. The Kaiserbahnhof station seems to have had no worries in terms of coronary technology. It's annoying that there's still 23:00 on the homepage. Better would be a hint: we close when we want. Be fair and correct.

The Esden was a pleasure and a beautiful ambience. Very friendly service.