Martin Schmolinga is head chef at what is probably the largest open-air restaurant in Munich: the Tierpark Hellabrunn. About his everyday challenges, corona-related changes in the menu and the most demanding zoo residents.
from
Philip Crones
Mean. A well-equipped professional kitchen with tons of provisions, barrel-sized pots on the stove, in which rice or a vegetable soup are cooked in the morning, of which Martin Schmolinga only says: “It smells delicious here.” None of this is for employees though. The zoo needs 207 tons of feed a year. The pallets of herring just delivered on Wednesday morning and the man-high load of beetroot in front of the warehouse can only be moved with a forklift. Schmolinga shakes his head. The colleagues wouldn’t take a single apple, says the slim man with the short, dark hair. Everything for the animals. And everything is not so easy. It’s a long way from the forklift truck to the enclosure, in every respect.