Yorkville, a small neighborhood in the Upper East Side, used to be home to a thriving German immigrant community. While much of the German flavor of the neighborhood has since been lost, Heidelberg Restaurant is a remnant of this bygone era. Open since the 1930s, Heidelberg’s website boasts that it’s one of the United States’ oldest family-run German restaurants.

If you’re looking for the restaurant, Heidelberg’s fachwerk-style facade make it hard to miss. The German-style exterior continues in the interior, where warm, dark woods, old paintings, and the large bar in the center of the restaurant offer visitors a warm and cozy environment. We opted to sit outside on the warm, spring day, where greenery around the windows provided a lovely setting for our meal.

Heidelberg offers a wide array of German dishes, each of which is written in German with an English description. Menu items range from a variety of Wursts and Schnitzels to gulasch, from Sauerbraten to Spätzle. We ordered a Weisswurst that came with Kartoffelsalat and Sauerkraut, a Schnitzel sandwich, and a side order of Käsespätzle. All of our food was delicious and reminded us of food our family makes. Alongside our meal, we ordered two of the many German beers that Heidelberg has both on tap and in bottles.

If you’re searching for German cuisine in New York, you would be hard-pressed to find a better option than Heidelberg Restaurant. It offers a large array of good German food beyond the typical Wurst selection and Schnitzel that many German-American restaurants offer. Visitors can enjoy their food in a warm and comfortable setting that just might conjure feelings of Gemütlichkeit.