Café Hansen

This is by far the best bakery in the area and my favorite bakery that I was fortunate enough to visit in Germany. It's tucked away in the storybook town of Bernkastel and the sight of chocolate truffles in the window is sure to draw you in. They have all the traditional German cakes, here's what I suggest:

Their specialty truffles- rich, smooth and creamy. You can't go wrong. Adding Riesling only makes them better.

Apfelstrudel: warm, gooey and delicious! The best I had in Germany.

Sacher Torte: The jam in the middle was perfect to cut the dense chocolate flavor.

Black Forest Cake: You just can't go wrong with the cherry, chocolate and light cream combination.

Eisekaffee- I became addicted to these after ordering what I thought was coffee with ice, but received scoops of gelato, doused in espresso and lovingly topped with unsweetened whipped cream.

Overall, a ten on the greatness scale. I wish could live in Bernkastel just so I could have continued my twice-a-day ritual of visiting the bakery.

€36 for 4 people for coffee, tea, 2 hot chocolates with liquor and cakes and pastries

Walking post lunch, showing our guests around Bernkastel-Kues and the scent of coffee and chocolate wafted through the air beckoned me to this place. We usually go to a different place but I wanted to give this venue a try with all the positive reviews here on Yelp.

Went in and it looked decent enough, and if decisions were based on smell alone, it would have won hands down. But boy were we disappointed. The pastries/cake were okay. The hot chocolate, coffee and tee, were what one would expect to be, nothing to write home about. This was all okay but the bad service we experienced pushed the experience over the edge and made this place a one star venue for me (based on European food service criteria, it was bad).

So when you walk in you are greeted by a display case full of sweets, cakes and pastries. If you decide to dine-in, you have to order your cake/pastry before sitting down. The lady at the counter gives you a ticket which you then give to your server. You then pick a table, order your drinks and give your tickets to your server. We sat right in front of the coffee/beverage service area. Our server took our drink order in Deutsche - ein schwarz Kaffee, Becher Schokolade mit Sahne und Cointreau, Becher Schokolade mit Sahne und Rum, schwarz Tee mit Milch, wrote it down, took our tickets for our cakes/pastries and walked the few steps to the coffee bar. Came back a few minutes later came back with two plain hot chocolates with whipped cream and two hot coffees, black. Well one out of four ain't so bad, right?!? And then we waited, waited, waited for our cakes/pastries for about 20 minutes figuring she was busy. I looked over the counter and there were our cakes sitting on the counter waiting to be served minus one which I had to reorder and get another ticket for. Gave that ticket to our waitress and that desert was served very quickly. I then asked her for our other desserts and she promptly shook her head and told us that we did not order anything else. At this point I stood up and picked up the plates myself. She then looked at her pad and then all of a sudden she found where she wrote those order numbers. Quick apologies and walked away. Can't say she was too busy as she had a few tables during coffee hour, and she was chatting with other patrons and co-workers. It was just plain bad service. In all my travels here in Europe, this has been the worst service I've had. I can definitely say that there are better places to go to in town for cake and pastries with better service too no matter how busy they are.

We stopped in on a cold day during the Christmas Market for the some cake and coffee. Inside they have tables at three different levels/floors. The cakes were excellent and so was the coffee. Just for the heck of it I decided to get an Irish Coffee. Wow! What a delight. I may have to go back just to see how they made it and what whiskey they used. We will definitely stop there again on a return trip to the town.