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Please note, Wurst Club is now closed. Time Out Food & Drink editors, April 2016.
Go on then, have a nibble of my sausage.’ The nice people at Wurst Club could easily say a lot of things like this, but happily, they don’t. This new purveyor of the great German wurst is instead a model of Teutonic efficiency and civility. Queue up at the till to place your order with the young fräulein, then head to the collection area, where a trio of sweet servers will bag up your just-cooked order.
Fancy eating in? Sure, but don’t get any ideas about lingering, there are counters, but no seats. In spite of diners being made to feel slightly like, well, a sausage in a sausage factory, the cooking is spot-on: we enjoyed our riesenbockwurst, an extra-long (riesen means ‘giant’) hot dog where the thick, smoky casing gave way to a juicy pork centre. Instead of a bun, this came in its birthday suit, with only a layer of delicate, caraway seed-flecked sauerkraut to cover its modesty. Equally enjoyable was an home-cooked potato salad, made to a traditional recipe with chunks of potato, boiled egg and sweet gherkins wrapped up in a creamy mayonnaise coat.
Elsewhere, there’s currywurst (chopped hot dogs with a sweet-and-piquant sauce), Nürnbergers and classic sides and drinks, such as just-fried frites or Fritz-Kola and Warsteiner lager from the fridge.
The unflappable staff switch effortlessly from Deutsch to jocular English, treating the incoming City boys – many of them slick German bankers – like old friends. Perhaps the only disappointment, especially given the alpha male clientele, was that portions weren’t pitched at big appetites. The bread-less wiener wasn’t exactly weenie, but if you’re hungry, be sure to have it in a bun.