Auerbachs Keller (Auerback's Celler), Leipzig

Auerbachs Keller (Auerbach's Cellar in English) is the second oldest restaurant in Leipzig, Germany. Already one of the city's most important wine bars by the 16th century, it owes its worldwide reputation to Goethe's play Faust as the first place Mephistopheles takes Faust on their travels.

Young Goethe often visited Auerbach's Cellar while studying at Leipzig University from 1765 to 1768 and called it his favorite wine bar. He saw there two paintings on wood dating from 1625, one depicting the legendary magician and astrologer Johann Georg Faust drinking with students and the other showing him riding out the door astride a wine barrel, something he could have accomplished only with the help of the Devil.

Goethe was already familiar with the Faust legend from his youth, since a puppet show Dr. Faust, was frequently performed at local street fairs. The scene Auerbach’s Cellar in Leipzig in his drama Faust I is his literary memorial to his student tavern and to the city, albeit an ironic one.