A guide to Germany's three starred chefs: Joachim Wissler

In the run up to the release of this year’s German Michelin guide, we take a closer look at Germany’s 3 Michelin star restaurants and chefs. Joachim Wissler is head chef at the Vendôme in the Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg close to Cologne, which has held three Michelin stars since 2004. Joachim is part of the new German cuisine movement. His restaurant currently ranks as the 12th best restaurant on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Joachim was born in 1963 in Nürtingen near Stuttgart and grew up in a gastronomic environment. His family owned a farm and pub, where, from an early age, he had to fulfil tasks like peeling potatoes. Joachim decided to become a chef and started his apprenticeship at the Hotel Traube Tonbach in Baiersbronn. After working in a few restaurants in the south of Germany he became head chef at the Schloss Reinhartshausen in the Rheingau region near Frankfurt, where he was awarded two Michelin stars. Thomas Althoff, owner of the Althoff Hotel, invited him to open a new restaurant at Schloss Bensberg in 2000. Joachim accepted and opened the Vendôme - its courtyard reminded Joachim of Paris’s Place Vendôme, hence the name. Within four years the restaurant was honoured with three Michelin stars, which it has held ever since. The magazine “Der Feinschmecker” recognised the Vendôme as Restaurant of the Year in 2001 and Joachim as Chef of the Year in 2014. In 2002 he was also Gault & Millau’s Chef of the Year. Vendôme is ranked 12^th in the list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. “Wissler has become renowned for his celebration of traditional German fare, which he gives a modernist revamp as part of the ‘neue deutsche Küche’ [new German cuisine] movement, of which