Otto Geisel

Otto Johannes Geisel (born December 27, 1960 in Bad Mergentheim ) is a German chef and management consultant .

Live and act

Geisel comes from the renowned Geisel family of restaurateurs from Munich. After graduating from high school in 1980 in Hohenschwangau , he trained as a chef with Günter Seeger in the starred restaurant Hoheneck in the Black Forest. He then attended the hotel management school in Geneva. In 1984 he obtained a diploma in hotel management with distinction. He then carried out two internships abroad in top gastronomy in Italy and the United States.

In 1985 he joined the management of the family-owned “L'Art de Vivre” -Hotel Victoria in Bad Mergentheim with 150 beds, banquet capacity for 300 people, two hotel-owned restaurants and four other catering leases with 120 employees. The hotel's own restaurant "Zirbelstube" with head chef Hubert Retzbach was consistently awarded one star by the Michelin Guide from 1993 to 2012 . From 2003 using only regionally produced food.

Geisel has catering experience with up to 2000 people. He organized Luciano Pavarotti's 70th birthday party during his 2005 world tour with 600 guests. In addition, he was responsible for the state of Baden-Württemberg during the 2006 World Cup in Germany for the VIP hospitality in the Baden-Württemberg house during the games in Stuttgart and the final in Berlin with 600 people each.

Geisel was a member of the board of directors at various companies for a long time; most recently at Slow Food Deutschland e. V. and on the international board of Slow Food with over 100,000 members worldwide. He participated several times in the “Salone del Gusto” in Turin, for example the organization of the gala of German star chefs in the Italian royal palace “Venaria Reale” as well as the catering for the 5000 international delegates of the world food conference “Terra Madre”. He is responsible for the initiation and organization of the “Market of Good Taste” trade fair in Stuttgart with over 300 exhibitors and 70,000 visitors (2007–2009).

After 25 years of self-employment, he sold the hotel and founded the Munich Institute for Food Culture (2011) with international clients from the areas of gastronomy, hotel, industry and viticulture. He advised in the area of ​​quality management, specializing in ecology, sustainability and regionality.

For a long time he was on the board of directors of the German Academy for Culinary Studies , development of the Eckart Witzigmann Prize (since 2004 annual organization and implementation of the prize) and the educational offensive in the form of the bachelor's degree in "Food Management & Culinary Studies" in cooperation with the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW).

When Hubert Burda Media acquired the license for the German-language edition of the Gault-Millau restaurant guide in 2020 , Geisel took over the management of a newly established expert advisory board.

Awards

Geisel has received numerous awards in all national hotel and gastronomy guides, such as a constant Michelin star from 1993 using exclusively regionally produced food (from 2003), "Host of the Year" ( Varta 1998) and 2007 "Restaurateur of the Year" by the Gault & Millau Guide Germany .

Culinary arts

• First publicly appointed and legally sworn expert for the evaluation of wines in Germany (since 1999).
• Editorial responsibility for the Franconian wine-growing region, now Baden in the Gault & Millau Wine Guide Germany (since 2001).
• Permanent member of the Grand Jury Européen, Luxembourg (since 1997).
• Author of several publications on the subject of wine, enjoyment and responsibility.
• Regular articles in Eckart Witzigmann's culinary paper “Apéro” since 2012.

Science & further education

• Initiator of the first university course in Germany for Food Management & Culinary Studies (BA) at the University of Baden-Wuerttemberg (DHBW) with 130 partner companies such as Deutsche Bahn , METRO Group , EDEKA , Würth Group (since 2007).
• Lecturer in tourism, hotel & catering management at the DHBW campus Ravensburg (1997–2014).
• Lecturer in the cultural history of nutrition, currently at the DHBW campus Heilbronn (since 2010) and member of the university council there (since 2014).
• Lecturer in food culture at the “École Culinaire” for the Sodexo Group (since 2008).
• Member of the “Denkwerk Zukunft” with Professor Meinhard Miegel in Bonn (since 2008).
• Initiator of the project "Garden Land in Children's Hands" with the Sparkasse Association and the Baden-Württemberg State Foundation.
• Articles and interviews etc. a. in: New York Times Magazin , Stern , Focus , Süddeutsche Zeitung , ARD , ZDF , 3sat , SWR , BR , WDR , ORF Deutschlandradio Kultur .