96
MAY 2013
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
THREE PERFECT DAYS
||
STUTTGART
&
Benzing home and garden
boutique, falling in love with
a hot-pink watering can with
a golden spout. But it’s the
array of foodie treats on the
ground floor that leaves you
in a real tizzy, especially loaves
of artisan bread the size of an
average 5-year-old. You ask
if you might get a wurst or
two to take back home, and
a young butcher shakes his
head. “No, no. They don’t like
it,” he says, referring to the
customs and excise officials.
“
Unless, of course, can you
hide them?”
Up ahead is
Schlossplatz
,
Stu gart’smost elegant public
square, the hub of which is the
98-
foot-high Jubilee Column,
topped with a gold statue of
the goddess Concordia. You
gape at the gorgeous New
Palace, with its statues of a lion
and a stag, heraldic animals of
the kingdom of Wür emberg
(
now the state of Baden-
Württemberg). You admire
the columns of the neoclassic
Königsbau opposite, then the
Renaissance-styleOldPalace, a
building looking for a fairy tale
to inhabit. Before you know it,
you’ve admired away the be er
part of the a ernoon.
Maybe your earlier failure to
acquire sausages wasn’t such a
bad thing—dinner tonight is at
chef BernhardDiers’ Michelin-
starred
Schlossgarten Gourmet
Restaurant
.
You opt for the
standardmenu, not the “grand”
one, and thankgoodness:What
is billed as four courses turns
out to be nine. The beef fillet
in Périgord truffle jus is flaw-
less, as are the wine selections
(
and it just so happens that
the Drautz family at the next
table is responsible for one of
your favorites, the full-bodied
2009
Lemberger).
Wined and dined, perhaps
overly so, you take an invigo-
rating if wobbly walk to
Bix
,
where crooner Jens Simon
Petersen is wooing the busy
bar into a sway of appreciation.
The jazz club has black-
and-white photos of the
greats on the walls, red velvet
curtains and cigar smoke
lingering in the air. During a
break between sets, you head
upstairs and take a stool. The
old bartender, wearing a black
silk vest, hands you a pilsner
without a word. Perfect.
DAY TWO
| Still feeling the
effects of yesterday’s culinary
adventures, you start your day
with a bowl of fruit from the
hotel’s breakfast buffet. Then
you hop on the subway to the
Schweinemuseum
,
said to be
the world’s largest
repository
of pig-related art and artifacts.
You arrive to find owner Erika
Wilheimer, clad in an acid-
green zebra-print top, counting
out small plastic piglets. Upon
learning “The Pig Queen”
doesn’t speak English, you go
upstairs and wander the 25
exhibit rooms; youparticularly
enjoy the piggy portraits. A
faint aroma of bacon seems to
pervade the place.
H a v i n g i n d u l g e d i n
the museum restaurant’s
Slaughterhouse Snackboard
(
suckling pig, sausage, ham
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Left, a
night at jazz club Bix; opposite,
clockwise from top left, wildlife at
the Wilhelma zoo and botanical
gardens; a Mos Eisley bartender;
a cake of goose liver with an
almond macaron at Schlossgarten
Gourmet Restaurant; inside the
sprawling Markthalle
