Maybe Frank should retrain Rosin. Become clairvoyant. Or gamblers. If he had bet on his suspicions after his last assignment at “Rosins Restaurants” (Kabel Eins), he could have won. Because the “naturally tasty” went “naturally bad”. The prevented restaurant savior saw it coming.
In the latest case of “Rosins Restaurants” (Thursdays, 8:15 p.m., Kabel Eins) an impression quickly emerged that made it difficult to look rosily into the raisin-pretended future. Frank Rosin himself realized early on that this was “not gastronomy out of passion, but gastronomy out of megalomania”. The owner Timo (37), who sent the call for help together with his partner Annika (31), could not be denied the will. “Closing was never an option,” says Timo.
“So many construction sites!” Frank Rosin quickly got to thinking in the “Naturally tasty” in Saarbrücken. Owner Timo is not an experienced restaurateur. His motivation for getting into the culinary business was that “I like eating out and I’m actually dissatisfied everywhere.” Frank Rosin (“I almost fainted”) could only shake his head.
If it weren’t for her life partner Annika, “Naturally Tasty” would already be “naturally closed” anyway: The trained hairdresser kept the restaurant financially afloat with the money she earned in another job. “We are through financially and physically,” she admitted.
Frank Rosin: “You should actually close the thing”
Limited experience, limited space, limited knowledge, limited skills. It was missing in every nook and cranny. Above all, there were problems with self-assessment and communication with one another. “All in all, it’s pathetic,” said Rosin after the first test meal. Which, with 2.5 stars out of a possible five, also became a “total disaster”. “Actually, you have to close the thing,” Rosin was almost hopeless.
That was Annika too. Although she received by far the best rating as a service worker with four out of five points, she then pulled the ripcord for the restaurant rescue project. Rosin didn’t want to give up yet and completed cooking training with Timo and his cook Max (24). Timo immediately felt a “new fire”, but first fired against Rosin, complaining about “a few things that I can’t handle.” A cleansing conversation cleared up the contaminated chemistry.
Test meal two: An early low point – and then things go downhill
Without Annika, but with enthusiasm, Timo and Max headed into the home stretch towards the all-important second test dinner – and couldn’t manage to clearly communicate who should do the shopping. As a result, Max arrived over an hour late when he should have been preparing. An early low point. And it went downhill from there!
There was a hustle and bustle in the kitchen, where Max couldn’t keep up. Service worker Timo was extremely relaxed, as he allowed the guests to wait for almost 60 minutes – and thought that was completely okay. In between there was a desperately shocked Frank Rosin, who even had to help serve the starter so that things could move forward.
“They are completely overwhelmed. “Everyone for themselves and also as a team,” Rosin had to realize. The fact that the two of them let it happen in a somewhat apathetic way really annoyed him: “I can’t shake the feeling that there’s a lick-my-ass feeling here.”
Fatal finale: “That was a catastrophic test meal”
Rosin keeps preaching that it can’t be anything half-baked. And I wasn’t wrong here either. Timo and Max saved themselves three out of five stars in the second test meal. “Thanks to the gracious test eaters,” Rosin said clearly: “I wouldn’t have been so gracious. That was a disastrous test meal!”
Timo (“Disappointing that we failed with our demands”) and Max (“That went shit!”) were contrite. But Rosin immediately doubted whether they had correctly understood the verdict, a real “punch in the stomach”. “I suspect that if I leave the farm, Timo will continue to do the same thing as before. He always thinks he’s right.”
“Example of the cross-section of German gastronomy”
Rosin explicitly saw it differently: “More than just small things need to be changed here. Three stars isn’t enough. Something needs to be built here. You can’t continue like this, otherwise it will be a shot in the oven and you can close it. Things have to be done here, otherwise you won’t be able to last another four weeks.”
Frank Rosin said goodbye and walked into the evening with dark words. “I’m exhausted and exhausted and empty. That was a difficult time for me too.” He saw this episode as “merciless gastronomic realism” and an “example of the cross-section of German gastronomy”. Rosin’s impression: “Far too many people still become self-employed without having learned the job.” That has to change, otherwise cases like that of “Naturally tasty” wouldn’t change.
The “Naturally tasty” is closed
Frank Rosin’s words were dark, but his outlook was ultimately crystal clear. There was an entry on the restaurant’s Facebook channel in January (and well after Rosin’s visit) for the first time in over a year. And Timo’s partner Annika was also there again when the restaurant received an excellent rating in the Saarbrücken weekly magazine “Forum” in February (quote: “I’m not worried about the ‘naturally tasty’ thing.”). But there was no longer any mention of Chef Max.
Timo and Annika didn’t abandon the epicurean zigzag line of a mix of German and Greek cuisine, even if Rosin (“The line is missing”) and the test eaters (“It’s better to have one right than several only half”) strongly recommended it. But as Rosin said when he said goodbye: “I can only give tips. You can only help yourself.”
It didn’t work: There have been no new Facebook entries since July, and the homepage says the restaurant is closed. The menu does not contain any of the dishes that Rosin tested with Timo and Max. Rescue mission: incomplete.
