"The Remise , or carriage house, of the monstrously rich stocking knitter Herbert Esche, who used his industrialist 's fortune to build a villa overlooking Chemnitz (what four generations before him had saved, he spent on the house, as our guide put it, and my heavens, does it ever...show! , is now a restaurant and, I believe, houses the kitchen from which events at the villa, now a museum, are catered. Jugendstil Art Nouveau architecture and decoration interest us, and so we arranged to visit the villa. Afterward, for convenience ' sake, we stopped in at the restaurant. Our table, reserved with a head through the door few words on our way between car park and villa entrance, was on the cosy first storey, a repurposed loft. The larger, well lit downstairs room has large windows that give on the villa 's park. Both rooms were bright and pleasant. The seating was comfortable. The table held a vase of fresh flowers a sprig of eucalyptus, an amaryllis spear. (Anthers not trimmed away... pollen stains on shirtsleeves. grrrr That 's one point off the service score, then. The kitchen offered three lunch options: Cheap and cheerful, salmon dumplings with broccoli and oven baked rice (sold out before 1300, when we sat down, and no wonder, at E6 ; three course special (cream of watercress soup, Thai prawns with ginger and coconut, E15 ; and a wide ranging but not, I thought, so much so as to suggest the deep freeze list of a la carte starter soup salad main course dishes. My guest had the three course special and I had a main course dish (blood sausage stuffed with foie gras, skillet roasted apple slices, and mashed potatoes, E13 . Dinner options include an E50 four course menu, but you 'd want to skip lunch for that, if lunch and dinner portion control principles are the same. Friendly and just attentive enough staff; credit cards accepted; and with drinks and tip we were out the door at E40 between us, having eaten and drunk very, very well as we watched little avalanches from the day before 's snowfall thunder down the eaves and past the windows. If I were a businessman in Chemnitz I 'd never take a guest anywhere else."
