Christoph Rüffer is Der Feinschmecker's Chef of the Year
The magazine's 2026 pick runs the three-Michelin-star Haerlin in Hamburg, where he has cooked since 2002. The profile appears in the December issue, on sale since 9 November.
Der Feinschmecker has named Christoph Rüffer, executive chef of the three-Michelin-star Haerlin at Hamburg's Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, its Chef of the Year (Koch des Jahres) for 2026. The magazine announced the title on 9 November, the day issue 12/2026 reached newsstands with a long, illustrated profile of the 53-year-old.
Editor-in-chief Gabriele Heins credited his “highest precision” and “impressive consistency”, according to the press release distributed that day. Rüffer has led the Haerlin kitchen since summer 2002 and kept the restaurant's Michelin star in his first year. The third star came in summer 2025, after more than two decades at the stove.
What Christoph Rüffer cooks at the Haerlin
Almost twenty-five years in the same kitchen is the argument; the third star only confirmed it.
Rüffer trained as a cook at the Sheraton in Essen and worked under Otto Koch, Harald Wohlfahrt and Claus-Peter Lumpp before Hamburg. At the Haerlin he works with chef de cuisine Tobias Günther, who has been at his side for 22 years. According to Tageskarte, the cooking rests on intense flavours, balanced compositions and sauces, with decoration playing a minor role, and on a network of suppliers that increasingly includes producers from the Hamburg region.
The press release names three dishes: Helgoland lobster with creamed kohlrabi and kombu-berry tea, rock barbel with grilled paprika sabayon, and roe deer saddle with Hamburg bacon, smoked pistachio and balsamic cherry. None of them is built on a gimmick, which is partly the point of the award.
A title that follows a run of recognition
The prize is not the first this year. In February, the magazine's guide to the 500 best restaurants in Germany 2026 gave Rüffer five “F”, the top rating, for the first time, one of fifteen chefs to reach that level, according to Gourmet Report. Der Große Restaurant & Hotel Guide had already named him its chef of the year for 2020, as Tageskarte reported in November 2019.
The Feinschmecker's other 2026 awards went elsewhere: Douce Steiner of Hirschen in Sulzburg is Köchin des Jahres, and Überfahrt in Rottach-Egern is Restaurant des Jahres. Hamburg's own scene is moving too, with Haebel closing its one-star restaurant at the end of the year and Kevin Fehling taking to the seas on seven MS Europa cruises in 2027.
What happens next is modest. The press release announces no ceremony and no change at the Haerlin; the profile and a podcast episode with Rüffer are the only follow-ups. After almost 25 years in the same kitchen, the chef of the year is simply the man who stayed.
