berlinrestaurants

How Berlin Reinvents its Culinary Scene. Again

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Berlin, always the sophisticated, cultured and international is at the forefront of dining and nightlife once more. It is said that the unification of Germany sparked an enthusiasm that only seems to grow. The two ladies toast Berlin specialties at the The Lutter & Wegner is a Berliner institution at the Gendarmenmarkt. Refurbished, high-energy market halls offer international street food. Berlin’s myriad bars offer cocktails and a scene. And cafes, including coffeehouses, offer breakfast, tea time and sweets.

Market Halls are a popular tradition in Berlin (Photo courtesy of © German National Tourist Board (GNTB))

These days, though, vegan menus, sustainability and nature walks are also mandatory additions to the dining and night clubbing scene (see //localfoodeater.com/why-bilbao-is-the-must-visit-of-the-year/

Wildly popular Spring Wild Herb Tour with a Tasting at the End (Photo courtesy of © German National Tourist Board (GNTB))

The historic and the modern go side by side, In keeping with St. Martin’s Day on November 11, many  Berlin restaurants serve succulent roast goose in November and in the pre-Christmas period. And for those who prefer vegetarian or vegan food, we also has a list of restaurants with vegetarian and vegan cuisine. This tradition is so popular guests are asked to not only make table reservations and to please order the roast goose in advance.

Group of friends eating a goose
Many restaurants serve traditional Roast goose on St. Martin’s Day (Photo courtesy of © German National Tourist Board (GNTB))
Roast goose (Photo courtesy of © German National Tourist Board (GNTB))

As one of 16 diverse federal states in Germany, Berlin offers offers a fine selection of treasured local and national flavors. Traditional savory and sweet recipes passed down generation to generation for centuries are shaped by regional ingredients, climate conditions and local history.

Berlin’s culinary cuisine shaped by Germany’s range of historic regional fare (Photo courtesy of © German National Tourist Board (GNTB))

The city also has its own particular culinary personality. For example, a huge range of varied German regional fare is featured at the Mark Brandenburg. And Hof Zwei offers nouveau cuisine establishment, or you can grab a relaxed German bite at Berlin Hauptbahnhof’s food court.

Baret Café’ contemporary, breezy, dining rooms with a rooftop view in modern Berlin (photo courtesy of © German National Tourist Board (GNTB)

Another enticing dining and cultural combination located in the northeastern area of the Humboldt Forum between the Schlüterhof and the Spree side, internationally oriented Deli ALEXANDER and fine-dining concept restaurantWILHELM feature historically inspired cuisine. They are set in a huge outdoor dining area with views of Schlüter’s baroque sculptures, the eastern city center and Berlin Cathedral.

The Deli ALEXANDER, the WILHELM and ALEXANDER a restaurant with deli gastronomy concept. Chef is Fabian Fiedler. (Photo courtesy of © Berlin Tourismus & Kongress GmbH)

Both locations directly integrate into the exhibition concept history of the Humboldt Forum site including kitchen utensils and plates from the Berlin Palace and the Palace of the Republic, as well as the Meissen porcelain wall relief that originally inspired the Palace Restaurant in the Palace of the Republic!

 Berlin cuisine is crowned by a number of succulent  pork dishes, especially knuckle and schnitzel.  Berliner Republik specializes in these items, prepared home-style, for example. Restaurants with similar traditional menus include the city’s favored, traditional pork knuckle with mushy peas, liver of calf á la Berlin, aspic on fried potatoes or meatballs. Add to this the most famous classics: currywurst and döner.

For information on travel to Berlin, including every kind of cuisine, tour, festival and event, please see://www.germany.travel/en/home.html. For culinary festivals and events, please see: //www.visitberlin.de/en/food-events. For restaurants, please see: //www.visitberlin.de/en/restaurants-berlin and //www.visitberlin.de/en/restaurants-groups

Berlin has always been known as welcoming as well as sophisticated. To make travel and sights more accessible they offer the  Berlin WelcomeCard.

“The Forger”: Food in WWII Berlin – and Now

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(Gerry Furth-Sides, photos courtesy KINO LORBER, © German National Tourist Board (GNTB)) Survival is the theme of The Forger in dank, dreary 1943 Berlin under Nazi rule. Let’s take a look at the key themes of food and dining, and then update it.

Here we start with Writer-director Maggie Peren masterfully dropping you down a slide into sinister, dreary Berlin to tell the true story of Jewish meek-turned-brazen “forger” Cioma Schönhaus. It is arguably the best depiction of civilian life in wartime Berlin ever put on film.

Where The Third Man welcomes you into a theatrically lit post-war Berlin story from an American point of view, Peren drops you off a rickedty tram to fend for yourself along with Cioma, played by engaging Louis Hofmann, as lean, blonde and chiseled as any Aryan.

Cioma’s family has already been deported and he scrapes by using questionable papers, barely holding down a mind-numbing civilian job in a munitions factory because of his negligent behavior. His reckless ways also almost blows a chance to use his innate artistic skills to forge identification documents, which ultimately help smuggle 30Jews out of the country.  Food ration pay is his undisguised motive.

Peren’s inspired production team of Designers Philipp Eggert and Eva Stiebler, art directors Marc Ridremont and Stiebler squeeze every bit of color and warmth out of rooms, stark or opulent. Cinematographer Christian Stangassinger and editor Robert Sterna make every agonizingly minute suspenseful even knowing the positive ending.

The film also lends itself to comparison with Steven Spielberg’s winsome forgery tale, Catch Me if You Can. Here our hero had troubling psychological reasons for his forgeries, yet gaily led an adventurous life as an impersonator, a ride we enjoyed with him. Not here. The restaurant cavalier Cioma treats his temporary girlfriend to with his rations is as dour, impersonal, vast and bleak inside as Berlin is outside of it.

Frank Abagnale “borrowed” airline pilot uniforms for his holidays. Cioma had a borrowed German soldier’s uniform to dine in a nightclub, using unconvincing, irrational tactics with other officers that did not work. He had the same careless, irresponsible attitude when inviting young girls trading black market goods into his apartment, only to have the no-nonsense landlady throw them out – and him, too.

We breath a sigh of relief to read the credits and see he made it out of Germany on a bike to Switzerland and lived to the age of 93 with family and art job. This is where Perens met him.

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