Affäre

Affäre opened in May 2012 at 1911 Main Street, in a Crossroads space so large The Pitch compared it to a roller rink, previously home to the cabaret-restaurant Bar Natasha. It is the work of chef Martin Heuser and his wife Katrin, who moved from Germany to Kansas City in 2007 with their four children and spent five years here before opening. Martin's training is unusually deep-rooted: he learned to cook at his family's restaurant, Im Steinhaus in Bonn, which occupies a stone building dating to the early fifteenth century and has been in the family for nearly two hundred years. He holds a Master Chef Diploma and worked in two Michelin-starred kitchens before emigrating. Katrin completed her sommelier diploma through the International Sommelier Guild in Calgary and runs the beverage side. The cooking is contemporary German rather than the heavy stereotype — The Pitch, reviewing the two-month-old restaurant in 2012, described a menu of small and exquisitely presented plates which arrive at the table arranged like tiny sculptures, and that format has held.

For a non-drinker, this is a room where the beverage thinking is genuinely serious — a working sommelier runs it, and the kitchen's small-plate format suits a long meal built around something other than wine. Affäre keeps house-made non-alcoholic drinks and a non-alcoholic dark beer alongside the list. The honest caveat is that the restaurant publishes no drinks menu online: the everyday food and beverage menus load through a widget that does not render, and the only downloadable documents on the site are seasonal specials and a parking diagram. That means any named zero-proof drink circulating online, including on this page previously, cannot be checked against the restaurant itself, and the list is best confirmed when you book or on the night. Two practical notes that are firmly established: dinner runs Tuesday to Sunday with a last seating at 9pm and the restaurant is closed Mondays, and it genuinely welcomes children, keeping a kids' menu, booster seats and high chairs — unusual at this level of cooking.