Lübeck’s Marzipan in a Museum

Lübeck without Marzipan would be like New York without the Liberty statue. Impossible to think. The most famous is the Niederegger Marzipan, but there is more. And we have been in the museum of the Marzipanland.

I heard about it but have never been there though I passed a few times the last years when I was in Lübeck. My friend from Lübeck, the one I have my discover-and- coffee-and-cake-Sundays now for years every time when I am in town, thought last weekend it would be time to have a look in the museum and have our Sunday coffee in the cafeteria.

The shop, museum and cafeteria are in one of the old warehouses from the Hanseatic League times, they are called Speicher. The shop is small but full of all kinds, shapes, sizes of Marzipan and everything around gifts. On the first floor there is the little museum.

The museum displays ‘situations’ around the marzipan making, you can see the old molds where once they gave the shapes to the marzipan, there is machinery for the preparation of the almond paste and much more. It seems so in the room they also do the show cooking during the summer months. All explanation are in German and English.

We didn’t buy any marzipan in the shop, but the temptation was strong. If you like marzipan I would recommend buying ‘Bruch’, which are not perfect marzipan pieces they sell for half the price.

We left the museum and shop to go next door to the cafeteria. It is located on the first floor but has also a ‘balcony’ inside and a beautiful backyard which will be open when it’s sunny and warm outside. Very recommendable! The building is from the 12th century.

We had Marzipantorte, Marzipan cookies and coffee and sat there for a long while. It is a very cozy place, not loud at all though it was pretty full when we were there.

It was an interesting visit at the museum. I maybe expected it to be a little bigger but still very interesting. There is no entrance fee. Very interesting that the master of Marzipan, Burkhard Leu, was several times in the Guinness book of records, for the biggest marzipan pig (more than 1.000 kilos of almond paste!), the first and only gown made of marzipan pralines and more.

A curiosity: outside the building most of the Buddenbrook-movie was made. In the museum you can find a few mentions and articles about the filming.