‘The Alpine Chef’ dishes on changing the name of his authentic German restaurant in Fredericksburg

Figuratively speaking, Jannec Hornig has German cuisine in his blood.

Originally from Berlin,  Jannec traveled throughout Europe and learned how to be a chef. His wanderings eventually brought him to Virginia where he built a life for himself and met his wife, Katherine.

After years of being the head chef at Fredericksburg’s “The Bavarian Chef,” he bought that restaurant in June 2019 and renamed it “The Alpine Chef.”

Hornig sat down with Potomac Local to talk about his restaurant.

Where did you learn to cook?

“I was trained throughout the Alps at a culinary school in Germany. It was an old-school cooking and learning experience. You go to school once a week and you cook in a restaurant or in my case, a hotel for the rest of the week.”

What do you mean when you say “old-school” culinary teaching?

“By old school, we learn how to make everything from scratch. Instead of opening a bag of powder we learn how to make a stock or broth from bone. We’re getting the animal in, we break down the meat that you serve in a restaurant and the bones we make soups and stocks out of it. So we learn to use everything and not waste anything.”

What brought you to the U.S.?

“It was a German restaurant [the now-shuttered Zum Reingarten] in Stafford who said “yes, we’re going to hire you” and I started there as just a salad prep guy and moved up to head chef.”

How did you end up working at The Bavarian Chef?

“I started off here as a sous chef under the previous owner Jerome Thalwitz, he was the head chef here and he taught me the recipes that he got from his father and he took a little bit from me and what I brought in and I took a little from him and we came together and made The Bavarian Chef quite successful.”

“He has a second location in Madison and he was going to manage that location which made me the unofficial head chef and I just ran the kitchen with his permission.”

What happened that allowed you to buy The Bavarian Chef and turn it into The Alpine Chef?

“The other location in Madison has a food truck business and it took off, the catering side of the business got very busy. Since my wife and I were already running it he asked if we wanted to buy the restaurant. It took some time to get everything straight but we ended up buying the place.”

Will the menu change?

“The recipes will be about the same, we got the rights to use them since they were recipes from the Thalwitz family. The previous owner and I had similar training so we complemented each other very well. We’ve only changed about 10% of the menu, adding fish dishes since people want to eat lighter and we added a lamb dish. Other than that we keep it authentic.

What is the appeal of German cuisine here in U.S.?

“I think there’s the military aspect, everyone who’s been overseas and stationed in Germany they come here and they tell me ‘this is what we remember from being over there.’ So I think the appeal is that people remember how good the food was in Germany and we try to replicate that as much as we can. And I want to bring a little of the culture here, that’s why I’m happy to have the train station as our restaurant because a lot of old train stations are restaurants in Germany.”

What would you recommend from the menu to someone coming to The Alpine Chef for the first time?

“Well first we gotta go with the pretzel, I think everybody knows that one. We have it as a special every day. Then we have our Schweinshaxe (roasted pork shank) with sausage stuffing and fried onions which is one of my favorites. If you want to go traditional you have to go with the sausage platter.”

“We also have our signature Alpine schnitzel, it’s breaded pork with mushrooms, swiss cheese, and bacon. Those would be among the top three but we have a good variety, we’re one of the few German restaurants that still have veal on the menu, they’re very nice.”

Any final words for our subscribers?

“We’d love to have everybody here, we’d like for everyone to try our German cuisine and for those not familiar with that we have some American dishes on the menu. So you can’t go wrong finding something on the menu that you’ll enjoy.”

The Alpine Chef is located at the train station in Downtown Fredericksburg, at 200 Lafayette Boulevard.