Historically speaking, I only review the restaurants that I love. Being raised in the tradition of “if you don’t have anything nice to say...” I choose to celebrate successes with these articles. It is with that spirit that I recently went to Lagerhaus 95. I had been there several times before and have consistently enjoyed myself. The beer selection is one of the best in town by my estimation. I’m a sucker for a well made German amber, so any place with Warsteiner Dunkel on regular tap is going to have a place in my heart. That being said, this most recent dining visit had an uncharacteristic amount of highs and lows for me, resulting in an overall sense of “yeah, that was fine”. I supposed I’m a victim of my inflated expectations, so “yeah, that was fine” was equal to disappointing for me. I’m no saying the place isn’t any good, not at all; I’m saying that there were a lot of oscillating high and low points. So let’s start addressing them….

Occasionally I get asked to be a guest critic for some of the design programs at local colleges, and I’ve earned through that experience that any harsh criticisms should be bookended between good criticisms. So beginning with some good things, I can reiterate that their beer selection is one of my favorites in town. The atmosphere is an appealing mix of industrial conversion (exposed brick walls and ventilation ducts) and sleek modern (generous glass windows looking out on the Cobblestone District). The wait staff are absolutely top notch (special thanks to Jordan, our server for a job well done).

Let’s get into the food… The menu was redesigned very recently, and along the way my favorite dish at Lagerhaus appears to have hit the cutting room floor. Should anyone at Lagerhaus end up reading this, consider it my plea for you to bring back the Wursteller platter. The Wursteller was a platter of bratwurst, spaetzle and pretzel bread with grainy mustard. I was looking very much forward to it and regret that it is no longer available. But let’s not lament the past. What was available was an appetizer called the Chef’s Sampler that consisted of some short-rib pierogi, house made sausage, speck, pickled vegetables and some chef selected cheeses. This is where we get into the highs and lows of it. The short-rib pierogi were amazing, easily the highlight of the entire meal. The sausage was fair enough. It was a bit heavy handed with (what I believe was ) the marjoram for me, but I understand that some people prefer their sausage that way; Easter sausage from the Broadway Market is essentially kielbasa with marjoram. The speck was fine, speck is speck. I take issue with the chef selected cheeses. Our cheese selections were, as far as I could tell, an aged white cheddar and Maytag bleu. You can do better than that for select cheese. If it’s a cost issue, just leave it out. There are too many restaurants in Buffalo that offer too many more carefully selected cheeses than this to try and compete. Smoked gouda always works on a cheese board, or if you feel compelled to put out a bleu cheese try gorgonzola.

Going back up the roller coaster now, the pickled vegetables were very nice indeed. Overall, my dinner companions and I were fine with this appetizer, but for $17 an order I’m afraid that I require more than fine. This may be presumptuous, but I’d like to make some suggestions to the kitchen (the balls on this guy!) with regard to the Chef’s Sampler… 1. Drop the speck and cheeses, they aren’t doing you any favors and you can’t drive the cost of the dish up anymore to incorporate more complex/expensive cheese. 2. Compensate with a little bit more pickled veg and an extra pierogi (accentuate the positive). 3. If you really want to throw this over the top rope, throw a bit of your spaetzle one there, it has been and continues to be a strong hold on the menu. The last thing I will say about the appetizers is that we also ordered the brezel to share, semi-soft pretzel sticks with grainy mustard and beer cheese for dipping. The brezel was fine enough, but I miss the softer pretzel rolls from the old menu. Maybe I’m just biased.

Let’s move on to entrees now. I ordered the bangers and mash which was described on the menu like this…  Chef’s house made sausage, garlic mashed potatoes, smashed green peas and stout gravy. The highs and lows ranged from bite to bite on this dish. The sausage was the same one that was in the sampler appetizer, that’s no problem. The smashed peas were fine, nothing complicated there. And the stout gravy was pretty good. But then there were the “garlic mashed” potatoes. I put quotation marks around the words garlic and mashed because I take issue with the chef’s interpretation of both of them. There was nothing garlic about the “mashed” potatoes, not even a little bit and I have a theory about that which we will get to in a minute. Next, there was nothing mashed about these potatoes, they were instant potatoes. I know real from instant potatoes and I would be stunned if these were not instant. Mind you I do like instant potatoes, but not when the menu implies otherwise and not when it’s part of a $17 entrée in a restaurant. I can make my own instant potatoes at home, thanks. Back to my conspiracy theory about the garlic, I think that whoever was working the kitchen grabbed the wrong box of potato constitute, or the ran out of the instant garlic potato constitute and restocked with plain by accident. If it were real potatoes with real garlic you could just throw it in, but putting fresh garlic into instant potatoes after the fact would have been a train wreck.

My dining companions had the pork confit slider and the sauerbraten, respectively. The review of the pork confit sliders was mixed. She (that ordered it) felt the meat was far too dry, he (that tried it) thought it was fine. I think if it is a confit then there should be no question of dryness ever, that’s whole the point of the confit process. The sauerbraten was met warmly, my friend who ordered it has traveled more extensively in Germany then the rest of us at the table and had more of an acquired taste for it, so I trust his judgment.

In summary, Lagerhaus 95 is a great bar. If you’re down there before a Sabres game, by all means stop in for a pint. The service is excellent, but the kitchen really needs to get their act together. Nobody knows that I am planning to critique a restaurant when I walk into it and I have no notoriety as a food critic, so doing these reviews is, in a way, like being a secret shopper. That’s all fine and good when it’s all good news, but in a case like this, I can only hope that the not so positive things I’ve written are taken as constructive criticism.

Lagerhaus 95 is in an events driven neighborhood and there is a lot on the horizon for the Cobblestone District.  I offer these criticisms so that they are able to adjust fire and thrive during this period where 3-4 nights a week it gets pretty quiet down there without Helium or Arena events. As with all the reviews I write, my taste is no adequate substitute for yours, so I would encourage anyone who is so inclined to try Lagerhaus 95 for themselves. Maybe you’ll disagree with my views; maybe the kitchen just had an off night. I hope for all the best for Lagerhaus 95, but on game nights I’ll probably just stick around the bar. I don’t need to rack up a $30 food bill for a resounding “meh”.

Lagerhaus 95
95 Perry Street, Buffalo, NY 14203
Phone:  716.200.1798
Website:  www.lagerhaus95.com