"Despite the mania for inventiveness that overtaxes our era, a place remains for a restaurant that can deliver competently conservative high cuisine. That conservative taste seems to be the focus of Bullerkotte, which draws together many of the characteristics of the current farmtotable movement without...explicitly identifying or boasting about them. Bullerkotte might be described as a dignified monument to the first wave of German cuisine: to the earliest attempts to create a fine cuisine based on German products and traditions. On one hand, the menu and the venue have aspirations. Written in a curious idiom in which German and French cooking idioms merge and intertwine, the menu celebrates favorite German proteins such as duck, ox, chicken, and, of course, sausage, including blood sausage. Overall, the dishes could be described as somewhat meaty. An oxen filet, for example, arrived somewhat mysteriously topped by a whole, intheshell prawn, as if a freak tidal wave had unexpectedly swept seafood into the butcher's shop. This kind of multistory layering of diverse meats reached its acme in the it still produces the same unfortunate result, to wit, an initial sense of amazement followed by a feeling that a dish is somewhat overloaded. Many of the chef's inventions evidence a high level of creativity. For example, dinner opens with a marvelously memorable cucumber spread that, in lieu of butter, imparts a laudable vegetable as well as herbal taste to perfectly rendered baguette slices. The blood sausage appetizer features a stuffing of the aforementioned protein pudding artfully rolled in puff pastry and accompanied by a microgreens salad, all to uplifting effect. Equally creative albeit somewhat less successful is the duck breast and spaghettini combination, in which three perfectly rendered and exquisitely seasoned duck slices avalanche their way down a vortex of pasta, all alongside a tangy cheese tuile. Probably it would have been more effective to integrate the duck and the pasta more effectivelyperhaps by creating a duckstuffed raviolibut the merit of the taste could not be disputed. As previously mentioned, main courses at Bullerkotte seem, to modern tastes, somewhat outofbalance, with great weight given to the protein and somewhat perfunctory attention going to the accompaniments. Both the oxen steak and the local chicken appeared atop an eddy of mixed vegetables in a dark brown sauce that savored a little too much of soy sauce or similar seasoning. Although the vegetables themselves were spoton and perfectly poached, they added nothing memorable to the overall composition. The chicken main course had been identified as a tandoori recipe, but its mildness and wholeheartedly European flavor profile conjured no thought of India while the aforementioned soyflavored sauce led diners to wonder whether south and north Asia had been confused. Bullerkotte offers a lovely setting in the farmlands outside of the industrial Ruhr Valley. The restaurant occupies what appears to be a former farmhouse. Interior decor is, again, straight out of the elegant All is tasteful, all is deluxebut also all is beige. A full house creates a cheerful ambience, although the clientele might be characterized as rugged rural gentry rather than as city slickers. Bullerkotte makes for a pleasant country evening. It would be wonderful to see the chef turn some of his admirable talents to a bit of updating of both menu and envrionment, but, in general, the Bullerkotte experience is a pleasant one"