Christian Jürgens - Background

Christian Jürgens 2 Christian Jürgens was born on 6th November 1968 in Unna/Westphalia.
Already at the age of 16 he left his home town to begin vocational training as a chefin Bad Homburg.
His career then led him to Feinkost Käfer in Munich, Restaurant Tantris in Munich, Residenz Heinz Winkler in Aschau in the Chiemgau region, Jörg Müller in Sylt and Eckart Witzigmann in the Aubergine in Munich.

Restaurant am Marstall, Munich
In September 1997 he opened the restaurant „Am Marstall“ on the Maximilianstraße in Munich as Head Chef and Managing Director. In only three years he managed to cook his way into the top class of German cooking artists. In the autumn of 1998 the readers of the magazine.

"Der Feinschmecker" voted him 2nd in the competition "Highest Mover of the Year 1998" thanks to his special commitment and creativity. His next success came in November 1998 when he was awarded a Michelin Star, only one year after having opened the restaurant.
From 1999 until 2001 Mr. Jürgens wrote a column for a well-known daily newspaper on his „little cookery school” that was very popular with its readers.

In the jubilee edition of the magazine “Der Feinschmecker”, the restaurant “Am Marstall”, of which Christian Jürgens was both Head Chef and Managing Director, was awarded the title Restaurant of the Year 2000. The Aral Schlemmer-Atlas wrote about him: “We experienced a master performance at the highest level, the best possible expert preparation and a grandiose interplay of finest aromas” and awarded him four cutleries. The "Varta-Gourmet-Führer" awarded him two chef’s hats and thus made him one of the best twenty restaurants in Germany. „Besser Essen und Reisen“ awarded him two Gallic cockerels and made him one of the best thirty in their guide. The Gault Millau awarded him 16 points.

Hotel Burg Wernberg, Wernberg-Köblitz
Christian Jürgens took over the entire culinary responsibility as the Head Chef at Burg Wernberg on 1.5.2001. The 30-room Relaix-Château luxury castle hotel includes a regional restaurant, one of the most modern conference centres in Europe and the gourmet restaurant “Kastell”. After only a short while, the "Kastell" was awarded two Varta chef hats, four cutleries in the Aral-Schlemmer-Atlas, 3 "F" in the Feinschmeker, 16 points in the Gault Millau and one Michelin Star. In 2002 the Feinschmecker awarded the restaurant „Kastell“ 3 ½ „F“ and the Varta Guide awarded it 2 of its coveted hats. In October 2002 the Aral-Schlemmer-Atlas evaluated the restaurant „Kastell” with 4 spoons and “arrow pointing up” and made Christian Jürgens the "Highest Mover of the Year 2003" out of a total of 3000 tested restaurants.

The biggest honour of his career up to this point was bestowed upon him on 27th of November 2002, when he was awarded the second Michelin Star!

He was thus deemed to be one of the 17 best cooks in Germany and one of the 50 most successful cooks in Europe.
The “icing on the cake” was bestowed by the magazine “Die Bunte”, by catapulting the restaurant from 64th position the previous year to 17th place in 2002. The magazine “Capital” drew a conclusion of all of the year's evaluations in all guides at the end of 2002. It came to the result that Christian Jürgens was the shooting star in the cooking scene and put him in 18th place in their list of Germany’s best cooks.

From October 2002 onwards, Mr. Jürgens wrote monthly articles together with the well-known Munich immunologist Dr. Peter Schleicher in a Munich-based daily paper with recipes on the issue of "The kitchen as a pharmacy!" As this column was very popular with its treatment” just before Easter 2003. This fitness programme was also especially developed by Mr. Jürgens together with Dr. Schleicher.

Mr. Jürgens has also written short articles, so-called „tips of the season“, for the magazine “Homes & Gardens", which comes out 6 times a year. These are also very popular with its readers.
Mr. Jürgens’ degree of popularity has even reached the Bavarian State Chamber, which invited him to Montreal to represent the Free State of Bavaria as culinary ambassador at the "Bavarian Weeks in Canada".

In 2003 Christian Jürgens’ upward trend continued. The Feinschmecker awarded him 4 „F“, the Varta-Guide 2 hats and a bell, the Aral Schlemmer-Atlas 4 cutleries and an arrow, the Gault Millau 3 hats and 17 points and the Michelin Guide 2 stars.

The big restaurant and hotel guide from Bertelsmann nominated the restaurant "Kastell" as its Restaurant of the Year 2004! In January 2004 the first book by Dr. Peter Schleicher and Christian Jürgens was published with the title „Healthy and Tasty“, a guide to healthy yet tasty nutrition in our times!

In the ranking by Gastrotel on the 1000 best restaurants in Germany it reached 6th place.

In the year 2005 Christian Jürgens’ biggest success was the advancement into the first choice of the 10 best gourmet cooks by being awarded 4 ½ “F”! That means an improvement by 1 ½ “F” in only a short space of time which is rather unusual feat!

In October the Aral-Schlemmer-Atlas also took him into the league of Germany’s best cooks by awarding him the 5th set of cutlery.

In December 2005 Mr. Jürgens released his first own cookbook "Fantasy and Perfection" (published by Piepenbrock-Fischer, Munich) in which he introduced his cooking creations! The book received the gold medal in the Literary Competition 2006 by the judges from the Gastronomischen Akademie Deutschland e.V.
In the year 2006 the ranking by the “Bunte” magazine saw Mr. Jürgens in 9th place amongst Germany’s ten best cooks.
Since 9th October 2006 he has regularly appeared in Bavarian Television in the show "Wir in Bayern"! On 15th October 2007 the ARAL-Schlemmer-Atlas awarded Christian Jürgens 5 sets of cutlery for the fourth time in a row. In the 2007 ranking by the magazine "Der Feinschmecker" Christian Jürgens cam in 9th in the list of the 10 best cooks in Germany and 1st in the list of the best country hotels.

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