FOOD

The fried chicken is the common language between Frankenmuth’s two great family-style houses. The breading forms a fine, even jacket around each piece, seasoned throughout and fried to a golden crispness while the meat stays juicy. The style has an affinity with Austrian Backhendl: restrained breading, savory seasoning and chicken that remains the point of the dish. It is the familiar center of the table, but here it is only the beginning.

The meal opens with breads from the downstairs bakery: soft Backofenbrot white bread and slices of Stollen, the fruit-and-nut bread that immediately shifts the table away from a standard American chicken dinner. Noodle soup follows, along with a collection of cold salads and relishes. Cranberry relish is a regular, as is pasta salad, while the Michigan seasonal salad rotates; versions have included cold carrot salad and bean salad. Those small bowls give the first courses an old-fashioned family-table abundance before the hot food appears.

The core chicken-dinner sides stay familiar: baked dressing, Michigan Russet mashed potatoes and gravy, buttered noodles, a seasonal vegetable and the other bowls that keep circulating around the table. This is where Bavarian Inn and Zehnder’s still feel like close relatives. The sharper separation comes with the current Ultimate Family Style Bavarian Dinner, which adds sauerkraut, potato cheese puffs and a full lineup of German meats to the unlimited chicken.

Those potato cheese puffs, Kartoffelkäseknödel, deserve attention before the meat even arrives. Housemade mashed potatoes are mixed with cheddar and chives, lightly breaded and fried until browned outside and soft within. They are savory little rounds that are especially good with the housemade ranch. They have the comfort of mashed potatoes but the crisp edge of a fried appetizer, making an unusually good bridge from the cold starters into the heavier Bavarian portion of the meal.

Then the platter turns German in earnest. Kasseler Rippchen is smoked pork loin with a clean, gently smoky flavor that lands somewhere near ham without the same saltiness. Bratwurst brings a taut, crackly casing around a tender smoked sausage. Sauerbraten arrives as tender marinated roast beef under a red-wine sauce with a lightly sweet, spiced character. The Schnitzel may be the most satisfying of the group: breaded pork loin, crisp at the edges yet juicy inside, with lemon wedges giving each bite the traditional bright finish.

Together, the chicken and German meats make this meal feel different from simply adding another premium protein to an American chicken dinner. The Ultimate becomes a broad Bavarian sampling table: fried chicken beside smoked pork, sausage, Sauerbraten and Schnitzel, with sauerkraut and potato puffs sharing space with mashed potatoes, noodles and dressing. It is where Bavarian Inn’s identity becomes clearest – German food and Midwestern abundance meeting in the same set of serving bowls.

Housemade ice cream closes the included family-style meal, with Ol’ Fashund Vanilla, Ol’ Fashund Orange and Halb und Halb – half vanilla, half orange – keeping the ending as distinctive as the beginning. There is also a separate dessert menu worth noticing. Baked Alaska is still here: chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream hidden beneath a meringue dome and finished with chocolate and caramel sauces. In an era when that dining-room classic has nearly disappeared, finding it here feels perfectly at home.