The Michael Vogel story. A story from the provinces to the brightest stars.
We got to know a very special chef in Michael Vogel. A connoisseur from the pike in the forester of his father learning to his way to one of the 50 Worlds BEST 3 star chefs Andreas Caminada in the castle Schauenstein in Graubünden Switzerland, existing in wage, bread and honor at the stove of the master.
Grandma's kitchen was the real influencer for Michael Vogel's urge to cook
As a blogger, you always ask yourself how to start an interview with a passionate chef. Of course, it always starts with trying to research their CV. For culinary artists, the earliest phase of influence and awakening of interest is grandma. After all, grandmothers are the most important caregivers during a person’s growth phase, along with their parents.
It comes as no surprise that this is not an unusual realization for Michael Vogel’s youth.
If you look at the family background, you quickly realize how Michael came to the stove.
The Hohenlohe region, a special region of exquisite Swabian classical music
Michael Vogel comes from a traditional Swabian Hohenlohe family near Schwäbisch Hall. This picturesque little town is world-famous for the Würth Group and lies in the heartland of the Swabian-Franconian lifestyle with all the delights that country life has to offer.
Down-to-earth schaffa and of course classic Swabian-Franconian cuisine. Not exactly spoiled by luxury, which would be frowned upon by a basic Swabian character trait, but filled with much more love and content than some Bulletten Braterei suggests to us in modern times
His father's forestry and the urge to get his own hunting license.
His father runs the local forestry and, as Michael says, the wild boar could have been shot directly from the balcony. In a way, they live in nature. The fact that hunting plays a significant role in Michael’s life and that his father, as a district forester with a strong connection to the forest and meadows and their edible treasures, also plays an important role in Michael’s culinary development should not be underestimated. It is obvious that for a forester and hunter, a game butcher’s shop is always part of the professional toolkit and the resulting imprint with the breaking open of the kill for Michael Vogel. The finest game is a delicacy and source of protein right on his doorstep. This must have had a strong influence on Michael Vogel’s plate in his youth, lovingly celebrated in grandma’s kitchen.
The story of peeling potatoes and hitting wild boars out of the ceiling
Growing up as a teenager, cooking in your grandmother’s kitchen, peeling potatoes and working in your father’s game slaughterhouse naturally shapes your experiences. Then there are often only two types of character that develop as you grow up.
Either you completely reject what you’ve experienced and want to pursue other interests, or you stick to what you’ve learned from your grandparents or, in Michael’s case, his father.
Michael had had enough of school and wanted to do something with his hands. It was his passion and it still is. A wise decision that has taken him a long way and earned him a salary in one of the best kitchens in Europe, which is great cinema for a young man from the Hohenlohe region.
Michael Vogel's beginning of a passion for cooking. The tough apprenticeship years
His cooking career began in 2008 when he started his apprenticeship at Landhaus Noller Oberrot. An establishment with classic Swabian cuisine at a fine level and an adjoining golf course.
Here, fine Swabian cooking is still celebrated with a touch of international flavor in the menu. Creative and classic at the same time, but not too adventurous for the discerning clientele who are looking for exactly that.
The perfect basis for a cooking apprenticeship. Learning the craft from scratch. No powders and other popular labor-saving ingredients from the chemical kitchens of various food companies, which hold out their promises of sustainability and healthy nutrition to us every day.
Here, people still learned to make everything themselves, the way it was cooked in great-grandmother’s time. There were no packets that you could tear open on the side and fire into the frying pan. Baked food dripping with fat and served mushy in the style of modern times was and is frowned upon in this house. And rightly so!
Michel Vogel's formative journeyman years and the beginning of a great love
After successfully completing their apprenticeship, every kitchen wizard is itching to expand their knowledge and what job in the world offers such great opportunities to work with other people, destinations and flavors than the profession of chef.
Oberjoch in the Allgäu, Michael’s first journeyman station. The Hotel Lanig Bad Hindelang Resort & Spa. A temple of relaxed tranquillity and sedate financial decadence. A purely beautiful 4-star hotel adapted to its surroundings with a distinct culture for half-board dining. This speaks for the consistency and clientele at the Hotel Lanig. Longtime loyal customers who appreciate a certain quality and balance.
Bad Hindelang is just under 3 hours away from Oberrot and Schwäbisch Hall. Where the love of his life, Michaela, works as a nurse at the Haller Diakonieklinikum. A Time, Speed & Distance question that you don’t always want to ask yourself when you have time off at short notice and miss your partner. Michaela was working 3 shifts at the hospital at the time, which made it almost impossible to plan time together;
The Landhaus Rössle in Veinau Schwäbisch Hall
Normally, chefs don’t return to their home region once they have experienced the joy and freedom of shaking off the petty attitudes of home. It must have been something special about his love Michaela that the urge to create a future together led Michael back to his homeland. The Landhaus Rössle in Veinau Schwäbisch Hall is not exactly an establishment to be sneezed at, with an interesting menu and a wide variety of dishes. Deeply rooted in the tradition of Swabian-Franconian hospitality, the house still presents itself today for various celebrations of all kinds. Michael was strongly influenced by Ernst Kunz, the owner and former Michelin-starred chef, who places particular emphasis on high-quality cuisine with regional produce and working with ingredients that can be found virtually on the doorstep. Exactly what Michael loves and appreciates in the kitchen. Tradition in production, paired with products that grow and are available on the doorstep. From snout to claw, although this new-fangled term is nothing more than the ‘rebirth of post-war cuisine, when everything was utilised and turned into delicious delicacies. Michael remained loyal to the Landhaus Rössle for 3.5 years. He started there as Commis de Cuisine and worked his way up to Souchef, the deputy head chef. It should also be mentioned that hunting was in his blood during this time.
The Landgasthof Adler in Rosenberg Ellwangen
If you want to reach higher as a chef, you will hardly be able to avoid an establishment that cooks at star level. It was no coincidence that an establishment in the neighbourhood of all places put out feelers for Im, which also follows the same philosophy in the kitchen. The Landgasthof zum Adler with the family Josef and Marie Luise Bauer, 18 points in Gault Millau and 1 Michelin star, in the Swabian Franconian province, a house of dominance in the village. You can feel that history has been written here for centuries. Owners and guardians of family tradition have been running this establishment for several generations. A special place that is very rare to find. The house was redesigned in the 80s by a design professor Alfred Lutz in special colours. It is always a feast for the eyes to discover new design accents. The fact that the redesign of such a traditional house with bright colours does not have to be a contradiction in terms can be seen in the Landhaus Adler. If you ask Michael what particularly characterised him at the Adler, it was being part of the Bauer family. The feeling of creating something great with the whole team and receiving respect for the work done. Michael says that he was taught there to go the extra mile for the guest.
It goes without saying that Mr. Bauer, as a master chef, was also an excellent teacher for Michael’s future career. Given the relationship of trust, this was not an unusual case of a patron. At the end of 2016, the Adler closed its doors for the last time under the direction of the Bauer family. Michael was there. The famous country inn dating back to the 16th century fell into a deep sleep. At the time, it was not yet clear that Michael would be the prince who would one day kiss the sleeping beauty awake. We will report in detail about the Landgasthof zum Adler in Rosenheim/Ellwangen in the next blog. See the following link.
The Rothenburg o.d.T. master school and the author's own flashback
If you want to have the right title for your cooking services at some point, you need a master craftsman’s certificate. It goes without saying that this course is more about technical, calculatory or accounting issues that are necessary for running a business. If you didn’t know how to cook beforehand, you’re unlikely to find the holy grail at the masterclass. Michael wanted the title and achieved it in 2017. It’s amusing that I myself received my master’s certificate at this school in 1993. Afterwards, we chatted a bit about former lecturers and teachers at this vocational school and I remembered some great anecdotes from Rothenburg an der Tauber. A crowning finale to this time of hardship, no, you really have to keep yourself mentally occupied and do a lot of condensed learning. This title is not to be bought on the gentle wash cycle. What could be better than guiding his long-time love Michaela into the harbour of marriage and planning a future together after receiving the master’s title?
You're not satisfied with just one star, you can also have 3 Michelin stars.
If you want to go to heaven, you should aim for the stars. True to this motto, Michael applied for a job with Andreas Caminada in Switzerland.
It has to be said that Andreas Caminadas Schloss Schauenstein is one of the 50 best restaurants in the world and there is certainly no place for a chef who is not brave enough to try to live up to this standard.
At the beginning of 2018, Michael turned up at Andreas Caminada’s with shaking knees, overdressed in finely polished patent leather shoes and sweat on his neck.
Michael was received in a completely relaxed atmosphere, he was also introduced to a larger team and after not too long a meeting, a trial job was arranged.
Michael passed this with flying colors and was then employed at the new Casa Caminada restaurant. Three quarters of a year later, he was appointed Chef Entremetier at the 3-star Restaurant Schloss Schauenstein and remained in this position until the end of his time in Switzerland.
Michaels Vogel's formative experience at Andreas Caminada's Schauenstein Castle
The position of chef entremetier is feared because of its range and tasks, and it really is a position in the kitchen that should not be underestimated. Usually overshadowed by fish, meat and poultry, the entremetier leads a shadowy existence as the second fiddle of the keyboard. The fact that this has changed massively in recent years is also due to the vegan trend and the attention given to alternative meat-free diets.
Michael says of himself that he initially had a bad time in this position and had to fight hard to get to the top.
The team at Schloss Schauenstein has 16 chefs at the stove to celebrate the highest consecrations of the culinary arts every day.
Michael then had to work in the positions of Gardemanger, Poissonnier and Saucier, which of course gave him further experience.
During this time, which was rich in experience, he was often on the road with Andreas Caminada’s Flying Dinner Circus and one trip even took the team to Bangkok for a dinner show.
What makes chefs like Andreas Caminada so special is that he is constantly on the move. Media presence is not unimportant in order to fill the house with guests on the one hand and to remain attractive to potential employees on the other. Times have changed, we used to bow down to be allowed to work for the gods in white, today we ask for staff.
During his time in Switzerland, his beloved and current wife Michaela was employed at the Hospital for Psychiatric Services Graubünden in Cazis. So they both worked together in Switzerland and enjoyed and learned to appreciate the insight beyond the borders of Hohenlohe.
At some point, a couple will be faced with the question of how to proceed with their family and future plans.
The call of the eagle from Rosenberg could hardly be ignored.
The eagle in Rosenberg and the story of the resurrection with Michael and Michaela Vogel
It’s extraordinary to return to a business that you yourself helped to close to celebrate a resurrection after the instructive years of traveling. Was it the influence of the Bauer family when you treated Michael Vogel like one of your own sons during his time as a chef and always hoped that Michael would be the successor and upholder of the tradition?
Secretly, everyone who, like the Bauer family, has run an extremely well-known and highly decorated restaurant for so many generations in the family tradition of the Adler, hopes that their own descendants will follow in their footsteps and carry on the legacy. You must have been all the more delighted to have found two young people, Michael and Michaela Vogel, who also have regional roots in the area, to let the Adler fly again.
A beguiling aroma wafts from the kitchen again
You have to be pretty crazy, Michael tells us, to have dared to open the Adler as your own boss in 2022 at the height of the coronavirus madness and venture into self-employment in these risky times;
Anyone who dares to bring such a venerable inn back to life in these difficult times, not knowing whether the restaurant has any chance of survival, must have chutzpah.
Michael knew that the call of the house would carry him into the air. That’s exactly what happened and he couldn’t complain about the response from the guests. Of course, after his period of homeopathic 3-star portion sizes, he had to adjust the quantities again, but that came back quickly, as he says.
What Michael conjures up on the menu at the Adler today is by no means the kind of crazy castles in the air or dreams of foam that are cooked up in 3-star gastronomy, where the focus is on the event and discovering the unknown. Michael Vogel’s Adler in Rosenberg is all about rock-solid and honest fine cuisine. Regional & seasonal, yes we know it sounds hackneyed, but here it is still genuine and cooked to perfection.
But Michael also says that quality is more important than regionality and I have to agree with him. This is what our valued guests expect and what they are served to their complete satisfaction at the Adler.
We at TYPEMYKNIFE® have also looked at the house itself and its history. Read more in our next blog at this link:
As specialists for kitchen knives, we have also refined a special series of blades from the company GÜDE Solingen with his logo design for Michael Vogel’s Landgasthof zum Adler, which is for sale to cooking enthusiasts. The blog and further information can be found here:
