AGROB BUCHTAL TILES ARE
CONVINCING GOURMET
CHEF AND GUESTS
Many things have changed behind the decorative facade of the
“Alte Mensa” in Göttingen. In close collaboration with the historic
monuments protection authority and the municipal archaeology
office, the building has been fundamentally renovated since the
beginning of 2014. The basic objective was to restore the original
shape and room layout. Wherever historically valuable basic
structure appeared, it was to be preserved.
From 1922 to 2009, Germany’s first refectory was located there,
which provided up to 2,000 students with meals on two floors
every day. Since February 2016, conferences as well as festive and
cultural events have taken place in the building. The Georg-August-
University, which had the rooms renovated for 3.5 million euros, in
this way responds to the increasing demand for bigger and flexibly
usable facilities for conferences and events in the town centre of
Göttingen.
NEW CATERING FOR THE “ALTE MENSA”
The restaurant Augusta is intended for completing the conference
building with a high-quality gastronomic variety and for reviving the
Wilhelmsplatz located in front of it with an outdoor catering area.
The representatives of the university had talks with five interested
candidates. They finally decided in favour of the star-rated gourmet
chef Daniel Raub from Hotel and Restaurant Biewald at Friedland,
who says: “I have been looking for a location in Göttingen for a long
time. In the restaurant Augusta, I am having 80 seats now, 20 of
them in the booth, and can offer plain German and French cooking
there in a quite special ambience.“
First used as potato storage cellar of Germany’s oldest refectory,
then a jazz club, later a disco bar, and today the third business
pillar of the star-rated gourmet chef Daniel Raub: the renovation of
this 200 square metres large cellar vault required great sensitivity.
Architectural and engineering ingenuity went hand in hand with
interior design aspects. The materials used not only had to be
suitable for giving the historically valuable basic structure of the
building the right setting, but also resistant to the extreme stress to
which they are exposed in gastronomic establishments. That is why
ceramic tiles of the brand Agrob Buchtal were used for the floor of
the new restaurant Augusta in the “Alte Mensa” (old refectory) in
Göttingen.