Culinary Journeys

The saga of Wolfgang Green and his eponymous restaurant has all the twists of a classic read.

For nearly 30 years, Wolfgang’s Restaurant & Wine Bistro has been presided over by its warm, hospitable host and chef, Wolfgang Green.

Classically trained (a euphemism for toiling 12 hours a day at low wages), Green learned his craft, starting in 1957 at age 14, at culinary school and working 12 hour shifts in a hotel kitchen in Chemnitz, East Germany. A forerunner of the times, the hotel’s Executive Chef was one of the first to make TV appearances – and Wolfgang, one of the 6 of 100 applicants chosen for the three-year apprenticeship, was tasked with assembling the ingredients for the show. It proved to be good training for what was to come. He remained with the company –albeit at another property – for a year after graduation.

In 1961, at age 18 he decided he wanted to travel and see the world. It was a decision more easily made then realized.

After World War II, emigration restrictions were imposed by countries in the Eastern Bloc, and those caught trying to leave were subject to heavy penalties. Wolfgang discovered that escape might be possible on a train that ran in a loop from East to West to East Berlin. Although heavily guarded, he reckoned that if he boarded the last train, there was a chance he could slip past the sentries and disembark in West Berlin. And so, he did on August 6, 1961 – six days before the erection of the Berlin Wall. It would be 15 years before he returned to East Germany. For 10 days, he sheltered at a refugee camp before making a connection with a fellow “camper” who helped him secure work in Hamburg.

I know not what it must be like to flee one’s native country and begin again. Nevertheless, fearless and resourceful as ever, Wolfgang spent the next decades seeking new opportunities in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1962 he settled in Kingston, Jamaica, working for the Sheraton – learning English and the local patois while there. After two years and once again seduced by the allure of new challenges, he accepted work in Bermuda. Three years later he returned to Jamaica where he remained until 1974, when while working for Rosehall, the company transferred him to Memphis. It was during his tenure in Jamaica that he met and married his first wife and his oldest daughter, Sigrid, was born.

He assumed Executive Chef and Food & Beverage positions in restaurants in New Orleans and Dallas and for a cruise ship line in Hawaii. He met his wife Mindy in Dallas in 1986, and they married in 1988. Their daughter, Kate, was born in Honolulu in 1991. When they returned to the mainland in 1994, they landed in Highlands and bought the old Hildegard’s. At the time, the restaurant consisted only of the back building – the single location on Main Street with a big front yard.

The family moved into the apartment above the restaurant and began renovating the restaurant, opening the space, adding tables and chairs and eventually a pavilion to the front. The menu was updated to include New Orleans specialties and more steaks and seafood were added. When liquor by the drink became legal in town in 2008, they built the building that is now the Bistro – offering “small plates” in addition to the full menu. A harbinger of the farm-to-table movement, Wolfgang early on populated his menus with ingredients from small, local farmers. They cultivated and curated and grew the wine list – recipient for multiple years of the Wine Spectator “Best of Award of Excellence.”

Decades running the restaurant has rewarded them with warm memories. They recall fondly the years they shuttered the restaurant on Halloween to celebrate Kate’s birthday, the events they hosted supporting local charities, and the renowned California winery owners that visited the restaurant for wine dinners.

They are proud of Wolfgang’s work for the Rotary Club of Highlands (he has achieved the 6 Diamond Level), and the professional recognitions he has received – named Texas Chef of the Year in 1986, his inclusion on the Big D Texas Culinary team at the culinary Olympics in Frankfurt in 1988, and his work as a judge at American Culinary Federation competitions. But mostly they are proud of their two daughters – of Sigrid and her position at one of the “Big Four” accounting firms, Ernst & Young, and of Kate and her achievements working for BNY Mellon in Washington, DC.

by Marlene Osteen