Herman Ze German Soho was my destination for a quick dinner after work. I already knew the Villiers Street branch, which had become a useful stop on the way to the last train. This time, however, I wanted to try the restaurant on Old Compton Street. The result was a spicy sausage loaded with cheese, onions and jalapeños, followed by a look back at two earlier visits.

From the Roberts London archive: the film was originally published on 1 February 2016 and includes footage from December 2014. The restaurants, menu, prices and opinions below describe those visits; this is not a current visitor guide.

Watch the Herman Ze German London film

From Villiers Street to Old Compton Street

I started the evening wanting something fast and simple. There was a familiar Herman Ze German on Villiers Street, between Charing Cross and Embankment, but I walked past it. The Soho branch was somewhere I had not yet tried, and that gave me a reason to turn a routine dinner into a small London excursion.

At the time, I talked about three branches: Villiers Street, Charlotte Street in Fitzrovia and Old Compton Street in Soho. Villiers Street was the convenient one for me. After an evening filming in central London, a sausage in a roll made a very good companion for the journey back to the station.

It had not always looked so promising to me. My first reaction to the bright branding, comic name and smiling sausage sign was that it might be a tourist trap. That busy route between the stations seemed an obvious place for one. Then I saw it at the top of a London food list. I could no longer remember the precise category when making this film, so I would not claim a particular award for it.

Other reviews had been much less enthusiastic. The disagreement made me curious enough to try it for myself. Once I did, I liked it. It became one of those reliable little food stops that earns its place through repeated visits, especially when there is a train to catch.

A straightforward sausage menu

The appeal was the simplicity. Choose a sausage, decide how to have it and add the toppings. The menu described three types: chilli beef wurst made with pork, beef and chilli; smoked pork bockwurst; and bratwurst made with pork and veal.

You could have your wurst in a roll, rather like a hot dog, or choose currywurst: sliced sausage covered in a warm curry tomato sauce. There were chips, bread, sauerkraut and other additions. I usually went for a bratwurst in a roll, but this Soho visit was an opportunity to order something a little more elaborate.

The restaurant said its sausages came from the Black Forest in Germany. Later in the film I read its light-hearted explanation about a butcher called Fritz who had been making them since the owners were children. The origin of the sausages was one thing; the towering combinations of toppings were another. They did not look quite like the bratwurst I remembered eating on my own trips to Germany.

Downstairs at Herman Ze German Soho

All the seats upstairs were taken, so after ordering I went down to the basement. There was plenty more room below: tables and benches, woodland decoration on the walls and little strings of lights overhead. It was a much more useful place to sit and film than trying to eat on the pavement.

Ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise were already to hand, along with a roll of paper towels. That last detail proved sensible. This was not going to be the tidiest dinner, and the toppings left very little of the sausage visible.

The Über Ding: spicy sausage and plenty of toppings

I ordered the Über Ding. Mine came with the spicy sausage, cheese, onions and jalapeños, with chips alongside. It was a substantial plate of food and a more loaded version of the quick sausage supper I normally bought on Villiers Street.

My verdict afterwards was straightforward: delicious food, fast and friendly service, and good value for money. I had chosen one of the more expensive dishes on the menu, yet it cost £6.95 at the time, plus a couple of pounds for a drink. For a sit-down meal in such a central part of London, that felt like a bargain.

The speed was also part of the story. There was no complicated ordering ritual and no long explanation needed. You made your choices and the food arrived. As a customer, that was excellent. As someone trying to make a whole film about dinner, it presented a slightly different challenge.

Two unfinished films from December 2014

This was actually my third attempt to make a Herman Ze German vlog. On two earlier evenings, I had stopped at Villiers Street after filming elsewhere in town. Both visits produced only a couple of minutes of footage: a sign, some food and an ending. Neither felt like a complete film.

I had thought about putting the two together, but the edit made it look as though I had eaten two dinners in one evening. By the time I came to deal with the footage, the Christmas decorations in the window were another reason to leave it alone. This later visit finally gave those little fragments a home.

The December 2014 material was shot on my old Canon S120. It struggled more in the dark than the G7X I was using for the newer footage, but it still captured the atmosphere of the street. Looking back also revealed a small change: the Café Rouge visible in the older film had become a Five Guys by the time I made this one.

Currywurst, sauerkraut and my usual bratwurst

One of those earlier meals was currywurst with bread and sauerkraut. The sausage was sliced into the sauce, which I found full of curry flavour without being fiercely hot. In the film I compared it with British chip-shop curry sauce. I liked the sauerkraut alongside it, too.

The other visit produced my more familiar order: bratwurst in a roll with dried onions, a little sauerkraut, tomato ketchup and mustard. That was the combination I liked on a late journey home. It was quick, filling and delicious, with enough going on to feel like a proper meal despite being easy to carry.

For me, that was what Herman Ze German did well. The sign was a joke, but the food had become a dependable part of my London routine. Trying the Soho branch added somewhere to sit, a more extravagant sausage and, at last, enough footage to finish the story.

For more meals from the same London archive, join me for Taiwanese buns at BAO Soho or a carnitas burrito at Daddy Donkey on Leather Lane.