Auerbachs Keller in Leipzig is one of the most famous restaurants in the world. Every year, 36,000 homemade beef roulades are eaten here. About 90,000 liters (190,000 pints) of beer and just as much wine are also served.
“We have around 300,000 guests a year, many of them from abroad,” Tanja Pieper, spokeswoman and anniversary ambassador for the storied cellar restaurant, told DW.
Even more impressive than the quantities consumed at the venue is the fact that, about 250 years ago, Auerbachs Keller partly inspired the first part of the great drama “Faust: A Tragedy,” by the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
The scene from “Faust” that takes place in the restaurant attracts Goethe admirers from all over the world to Leipzig to this day.
Auerbach: A friend of Martin Luther‘s
During Easter 1525, Leipzig physician and university professor Heinrich Stromer von Auerbach served wine to students in his Keller — German for cellar — for the first time.
He was friends with the church reformer Martin Luther, who also frequented Auerbachs Keller in the early 16th century and is said to have hidden there from his enemies at times.
The key 500-year anniversary celebrations were held during Easter this year, and included the so-called great feast.
“We copied this from Goethe,” Pieper said. “There is a big ‘Schlampamp,’ a feast, the trinity of eating, drinking and good company.”
“We celebrate at long tables like in the old days,” Pieper said, describing how food is served on boards and in bowls as in the 18th century.
Goethe’s ‘Faust’ set in Auerbach’s Keller
Goethe’s drama is about the aging melancholy teacher Heinrich Faust, who sells his soul to the devil Mephisto to become a young man: the “Faustian bargain.”
Faust gets a new zest for life but is not free of Mephisto’s evil. When Faust seduces and impregnates the young Margarete, for example, she kills her illegitimate child, is arrested and waits in prison for God’s redemption.
Mephisto is also up to mischief in the scene set in Auerbachs Keller. Wanting to bring Faust “into merry company,” he conjures up delicious wine in front of a few drinking companions before riding out of the cellar on a wine barrel.
For 30 years, actor Hartmut Müller has been taking guests through a popular “barrel cellar ceremony” tour in the restaurant’s barrel cellar, 9 meters (30 feet) below ground. As the “barrel cellar master,” he guides visitors through the history and vaults of the building.
“At an advanced hour, we then go through a separate door from this barrel cellar back down to the witches’ kitchen,” Pieper said, describing a small hovel 12 meters underground.
This is where the guests — like Faust in Goethe’s drama — are given a rejuvenating drink.
Inspired by the Dr. Faustus legend
Goethe did not invent his Faustian barrel ride; the idea is derived from an early-16th-century folk tale of the magician Dr. Faustus, who sells his soul to the devil for special powers.
In the barrel cellar, Goethe saw two wooden panels from 1625 illustrating Dr. Faustus’ legendary barrel ride. He is said to have observed how transporters tried to maneuver an overweight barrel out of the wine cellar and made fun of them. He bet that he could ride the barrel out.
“Goethe was so fascinated by these two wooden panels that hung there that he wrote us into the ‘Faust’ drama,” Pieper said.
In the 18th century, the restaurant was still purely a wine bar. In those days, wine was not bottled, but served from barrels stored in the cellar.
There was no cooking in Auerbachs Keller until the 19th century, Pieper said.
‘Bach’s Faust’ at the Leipzig Bach Festival
One of the anniversary events is “Bach’s Faust,” a kind of musical comedy by Bach Festival director Michael Maul.
Johann Sebastian Bach was Cantor of St. Thomas’ Church in Leipzig from 1723 until the end of his life in 1750. His daily commute to work also took him past Auerbachs Keller. Every year in June, the city celebrates the Bach Festival in Bach’s honor.
“A lot of music is mentioned in Goethe’s Faust, without Goethe specifying exactly what it is,” Maul told DW. Goethe greatly appreciated Bach’s music, said Maul, whose play is appropriately accompanied with chorales and cantatas by Bach.
The world premiere of “Bach’s Faust” with singers, musicians and actors will take place as part of the Bach Festival on June 15 in the large hall of Auerbachs Keller.
The anniversary of the historic restaurant will be celebrated throughout the year.
