Altes Gewürzamt: the star chef who became a spice miller
A Michelin-starred chef who hands over his restaurant to grind spices: that sounds like a step down. For Ingo Holland it was the opposite. What began in 2001 as a search for better spices for his own kitchen is today a manufactory with around 50 employees, whose green tins stand in top kitchens across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
From the Rentamt to the Gewürzamt
Ingo Holland, born in Klingenberg am Main in 1958, trained at the Frankfurter Hof and cooked at the Schweizer Stuben in Wertheim and at the Baur au Lac in Zürich, among other places. In 1989 he set up on his own in his home town, and from 1997 he ran the restaurant “Zum Alten Rentamt” in the old town of Klingenberg – with a Michelin star and 18 points in the Gault-Millau.
What bothered him was the quality of the spices that were delivered. So in 2001 he started buying, roasting and blending them himself. For six years he ran both in parallel. In 2007 he handed the restaurant over to his apprentice and devoted himself entirely to spices. The trade soon called him the “spice pope”.
Ingo Holland died unexpectedly in June 2022 at the age of 64. His son Kilian Holland, managing director since 2014, carries the manufactory on – as a family business, on the same principles.
What a spice miller does differently
“Spice milling is a craft of good taste. It takes knowledge and experience, and a good deal of passion”, says Kilian Holland. In practice that means: the blends are made for the most part from whole spices that are only roasted and ground in Klingenberg. Raw goods are bought for a few months at a time so that they stay fresh. No colourings, no flavour enhancers, no anti-caking agents, no artificial flavourings.
Ingo Holland once described it like this: “Spices have given my way of cooking another dimension. Used in the right way, I can lend a dish tension without taking the character away from the basic product.” That is exactly what you notice in the blends – they do not mask, they sharpen.
For the Christmas baking
Now, in October, many people are starting to plan their Guetzli baking, and here the Altes Gewürzamt has two blends that make the difference.
The Klingenberger Lebkuchengewürz brings together twelve winter spices: cinnamon flowers and cinnamon bark, ginger, orange peel and orange blossom, allspice, black pepper, cloves, star anise, cardamom, mace and anise. It belongs in Lebkuchen and Biberli, but also in a Lebkuchen sauce for game or in red cabbage.
The Backstubengeheimnis is the floral version: meadowsweet, chamomile, tonka bean and vanilla. A teaspoon in the shortcrust pastry for Mailänderli or in the crème brûlée, and the biscuits suddenly smell of a patisserie.
The Apfelzauber goes with it, on a cane sugar base with cinnamon flowers, lemon myrtle and Timut pepper – for apple cake, baked apples or simply over porridge. And anyone who wants to try cinnamon without its woody note takes the ground cinnamon flowers: sweet and powerful, with a hint of clove.
For the kitchen all year round
The best-known composition of the house is the Raz el Hanout with more than 25 components, among them rose petals, orris root and grains of paradise – for lamb, roast vegetables and couscous. The Café de Paris follows the recipe of the Geneva original with more than 20 herbs and spices; kneaded with butter it becomes the classic herb butter for entrecôte.
Among the curries there are two characters: Curry Anapurna with roasted notes and a bit of bite, Curry Maharadja mild and round, with vanilla and orange peel – the family blend. The Timut pepper from Nepal is a relative of Szechuan pepper: it smells of grapefruit and tingles lightly on the tongue. A few grains over fish, goat’s cheese or a sorbet – that is all it takes.
Our recommendation for getting started
If you do not know the Altes Gewürzamt yet, start with three tins: Lebkuchengewürz for the Advent baking, Café de Paris for the Sunday roast, Timut pepper to try out. The green tinplate tins keep the spices dark and airtight – and they look good on the shelf.
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