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This is Berlin’s top gourmet Italian [address]. Ana and Bruno Pellegrini have made a [name] for themselves as the most hospitable hosts in their exquisite restaurant, serving the most exciting Mediterranean cuisine. Under chef Andrea Girau, hearty pasta has been replaced by a lower-carb avant-garde approach, with wonderfully fresh, seasonal ingredients. For a pasta course, try the pumpkin tortellini. Most of the menu is made of fish and meaty delicacies, such as a breast of wild duck with Trentino apples, purée of celery and Vahlrôna chocolate. We also love the risotto with scallops—melts in the mouth. Molto delicioso! Four-course meals for €67.
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The Gendarmenmarkt area had little to offer to the hungry visitor—besides posh establishments and tourist traps—until Galeries Lafayettes opened its own bistro last year. After some shopping on Friedrichstrasse, make a well-deserved stop for a gigantic croque monsieur (with unrivalled pain Poilane), quiche Lorraine and a glass of excellent house red or a business lunch for €10.50, including wine and coffee. We recommend it to anyone looking for a good value authentic meal in an unpretentious atmosphere.
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This ample and elegant art nouveau styled restaurant is the ultimate canteen for some of Berlin’s most influential A-list TV stars and former chancellor Gerhard Schröder himself. The cuisine is high-quality French-German, including several dishes with fresh fish, veal and some of Berlin’s best (and most tender) beef classics, including the famous Kobe beef. The imminent arrival of yet another VIP only serves to enhance the experience. Reservations essential.
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Exquisite and, considering you’re eating at the Ritz-Carlton Berlin, exceptionally well-priced, with main dishes averaging around €17. Chef Thierry Marais has developed a mostly traditional menu including dishes such as sea bream fillet on sautéed spinach with chickpea flour and fresh pasta au pistou (the French pesto), both delicious.
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Unfussiness is the theme here, from the uncomplicated decor and friendly, casual service to the dishes made with fresh, high-quality seasonal ingredients. What more could you ask for? You’ll dine on some of the city’s best pizzas, delicious salmon tagliatelle in a lobster and crab sauce plus some slightly more inventive dishes such as ricotta-filled squid.
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This restaurant inside the Peugeot car showroom has been modelled after the popular French version on the Champs Elysées. Don’t be intimidated by the high-tech interior and cutting-edge everything from design chairs to futuristic cutlery. The food is unpretentious, generously served and tasty, making this one of the best lunch deals in the Brandenburg Gate area.
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The tasteful, carefully styled surroundings are somehow reminiscent of a French restaurant in New York—not surprising considering chef and boss Hannes Behrmann learned his French cuisine there. 'The Bourgeois Pig’ caters to a well-to-do clientele who find here refined gourmet French food, concocted daily according to the chef’s creative whim and market availability. It has a fine selection of French wines, but don’t forget this is a cash-only restaurant—no credit cards accepted.
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Here you can enjoy magical food such as smoked sturgeon, a tartar that has layers of cucumber, egg and caviar or the divine glass of ice-wine. Facil is housed in a post-modern glass box overlooking a fifth-floor courtyard, with a large central skylight that allows for year-round star gazing. The most novel dining accessories are the tableside stools—the perfect place for your laptop. Set menus start at €75.
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A serious Italian restaurant serving dishes made with exceptionally fine ingredients, such as local and Chianina beef. Also an excellent pizzeria, in fact the best in town according to EXBERLINER magazine. The decor is clean and uncomplicated with stone floors, a wine barrel bar counter and an eerily perfect noise level. Service is friendly and professional. Try the Elia, a scrumptious pizza in Bianco (no sauce). Take advantage of the robust wine list composed by the owner’s brother-in-law, a wine exporter.
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This is a serious French brasserie proudly sitting on the banks of the Spree, a stone’s throw away from Berlin’s media and government headquarters. For three years now, Marseille-born chef Vincent Garcia has been offering a wide range of dishes at the confluence of traditional French and gourmet food, and some of the best seafood in town (oysters and lobster especially). The clientele is nicely mixed, from construction workers to the Dalai Lama, Queen Elizabeth and chancellor Merkel.
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Gugelhof’s cuisine and atmosphere are still unrivalled in this charming part of town, with a buoyant, lively ambience in a rustic environment and great service. The excellent traditional Alsatian food is a successful mix of French and German specialities, from cheese raclette and flammkuchen (thin-crust German pizza) to the choucroute (sauerkraut) and scrumptious assortment of pork products and game dishes. This is where Bill Clinton famously dined and former chancellor Helmut Kohl can often be spotted. Reservations advised.
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The InterContinental adopted the American floor numbering system for its relocated Michelin-starred French restaurant, placing Hugos on the 14th (not 13th) floor and shortening its [name] from Zum Hugenotten. You’ll be greeted by a 360-degree panoramic view of the city, and delighted by chef Thomas Kammeier’s (voted best chef in Germany 2004) light but sophisticated haute cuisine creations. Look out for the glazed foie gras with pattaya mango, the suckling pig with fennel and oranges on mashed herb potatoes, and the blue fin tuna with wild herbs, sesame and ginger-braised cucumber vegetables—luscious! Set menus start at €78.
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This is one of the best and oldest traditional Turkish restaurants in Berlin. The festive interior is dark and lavishly decorated with Middle Eastern bits and pieces. Istanbul offers you a wide range of meat, fish and vegetarian delicacies as well as belly dancers for a bit of weekend entertainment. Sample the leg of lamb covered with an eggplant puree. Homey and delightful flavours.
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There are many passable cheap Indian eateries in Berlin, but few stand out. For a bit of luxury, try this restaurant which claims to prepare its dishes according to recipes collected from the royal houses of India and spoils you in its grandiose, if a bit pompous, atmosphere. The chefs come from all over India, making for a large menu selection. It offers a variety of tandoori baked dishes and the breads are great. Its speciality, king prawns cooked in a cashew almond cream sauce, is scrumptious.
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With locations in the Velvet Hotel on Oranienburger Strasse and in the Sony Centre on Potsdamer Platz, these Austrian restaurants serve some of the best German food around and are also one of the city’s oldest vintners. The historical location on Gendarmenmarkt is more traditional, with its beautiful wood-panelled decor reminiscent of 19th century Vienna. It serves such classic Austrian fare as sage and chilli roasted veal chop with Bandnuldeln (flat noodles) and the thinnest of Wienerschnitzels. The Sauerbraten (marinated pork roast) with red cabbage was [name]d best in Germany in 2003 and is still a hit.
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Authentic Viet[name]se cuisine in an elegant but simple atmosphere, with tatami seating and an open kitchen. Don’t skip the excellent starters—from the classic deep-fried spring rolls to fresh summer rolls or more risqué fried frogs legs. The soups are all excellent, freshly made and served with a plate full of bean sprouts, fresh herbs and sauce for you to add at will. The menu is so large that you can explore a different part of it every time you come.
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This is a very modern Japanese-Thai restaurant, located in a loft-space in the heart of Berlin’s lively Hackescher Markt area. The interior is ultra-sleek with artsy video installations in the toilets. There are long communal tables in the main room. For more privacy head for the small tables in the corner of the restaurant. Expect a large variety of fresh sushi, udon soups, tom yam fire pots, curries and stir-fries. Dishes here are hit and miss, but the hot sake will help make the night merry.
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[name]d after its street [address], this restaurant boasts one of Berlin’s most exciting and experimental young chefs Tim Rau, Gault Millau’s 2004 'Shooting Star of the Year’. A disciple of the famous Farran Adrià, Raue has found his own signature with creations incorporating flavours from his native Kreuzberg, the Turkish district of Berlin. Try the baby lobster with rose jelly, black currant sorbet and herb salad. A scrumptious dining experience from beginning to end at incredible prices, given the quality. A gourmet’s favourite. Large summer terrace.
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Chef Kleeberg might pay you a visit in the dining room, but he still won’t miss a detail in the kitchen. The cuisine is prepared in the French tradition, and dishes such as the fennel-roasted lobster, ragout of cockscombs, sweetbreads, crèpes and artichokes or the confit of suckling pig are luxuriously delicious. For the full experience, try the four-course (€78) seasonal menu. A classic.
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Two cosy wine restaurants serving the same inventive cuisine of chef Robert Kettner. Weinstein Mitte caters to a clientele of Berlin gourmets, after-concert regulars and politicians. The art nouveau decor makes for a cosy brasserie-style environment while the food will please the fussiest of palates. The duck terrine (cooked to perfection with quince, walnuts and coriander vinaigrette) and carrot mousse (with a sweet citrus flavour) are just perfect. Main courses include a succulent back of lamb roasted with goats’ cheese and served with okra and potato rosemary cakes. Special attention is, of course, devoted to wine, with the walls of the tiny Prenzlauer Berg restaurant stacked with wine bottles from floor to ceiling. Try one of the Austrian reds.
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