The top 6 best gourmet restaurants in Berlin

The capital invites you to the table!

Haute cuisine instead of currywurst: in Germany's capital, a young guard of creative chefs and gastronomy professionals is delighting gourmets!

1st Brasserie Scirocco

Kurfürstendamm on the corner of Fasanenstraße, what was that? That's right, the luxury Hotel Kempinski, or "Kempi" for short, which now shines as the Bristol. And yes, the famous Reinhard's, the West Berlin celebrity living room of numerous stars and starlets, which closed down last summer, was also located here ... After that, things looked bleak on the famous corner. Until Berlin restaurateur Felix Brandts took over and now brings a breath of fresh air to the sunny side of the Ku'damm with Brasserie Scirocco - seeing and being seen is still the order of the day for the 20 to 90 crowd. As in the past, the best box seats are at the top of the spacious, curved balcony, with a wonderful view of the hustle and bustle of Ku'damm. Executive Chef Nadav Kundel has put a modern mix of international classics and Mediterranean-Middle Eastern dishes on the menu. There is beef tartare, double cheeseburger and Caesar salad as well as grilled baby zucchinis, yellowtail crudo, steak frites and grilled octopus. The Ku'damm corner is also a popular place for breakfast: From 6.30 a.m., the Scirocco serves breakfast à la carte or as a buffet - for both hotel and external guests. Next door, in the former "Kempi-Grill", Felix Brandts will soon be opening a fish restaurant and the former KPM salon will become an ice cream parlor. www.scirocco-berlin.com

2nd Dry Gin & Beef Club

Gin and beef? Not exactly the latest trends, even if both are doing well in the restaurant trade at the moment ... The Dry Gin & Beef Club in Mitte, more precisely in Oranienburger Straße on the former Tacheles site, where metropolitan life is currently developing again, shows that they also go well together. The former Tacheles art gallery is already home to the highly popular Verōnika restaurant in the Fotografiska museum and the Root in the Hotel Telegraphenamt nearby. It is no coincidence that the location is attracting an increasingly international, cosmopolitan crowd. This is why restaurateur Michael Wilhelmer has invested a lot of money - and you can see this in the high-quality ambience in black, white and gray. In summer, the large terrace is also a real attraction. The concept of The Dry Gin & Beef Club is simple and straightforward: create a modern, contemporary design with an "industrial aesthetic, place as many selected gins from around the world as possible - over 600 - in the bar, grill excellent beef from fillet to tomahawk to perfection, generally only work with the best ingredients and also create a glamorous atmosphere that appeals to the cosmopolitan clientele. berlin-gin-beef-club.de





3. the wine lobbyist

No, the wine lobbyist is not entirely new. Sommelier Serhat Aktas, who is one of the top 50 in his profession in Germany, opened it back in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic as a wine-only bar with finger food and a rather modest range of German-Austrian wines in Schöneberg. Now he has reinvented himself, so to speak. The Weinlobbyisten now not only offers several hundred wines, but also one of the most extensive and best-stocked sparkling wine lists in Germany, which has already won several awards. Culinary progress has also been steady. A friendly and creative chef was hired, small dishes developed into multi-course menus, so that the restaurant is now recommended by Gault-Millau not only as a wine bar but also as a restaurant. And when it's summer in the capital, you can enjoy first-class wines and excellent food in one of Berlin's most beautiful courtyards. In addition, Aktas in the wine lobby regularly hosts
regularly hosts top winemakers. www.derweinlobbyist.de





4. Papillon

It vibrates. Not violently, not continuously, but you can feel that the S-Bahn is practically rolling over your head. In the old West Berlin, right next to Zoo station, a very special restaurant has opened: Papillon. In the early evening, the restaurant serves excellent Mediterranean and Levantine cuisine and later in the evening, from 11 pm onwards, it has a club vibe. Then DJs play and you can dance. The vibrations are a thing of the past, the bass is stronger. Restaurants with clubs are not entirely new in Berlin. There is the Sage and the Spindler & Klatt. Papillon operator Felix Brandts is also no stranger to the restaurant and event industry, knows the Berlin market and also runs the new brasserie Scirocco on Kurfürstendamm. The premises, two large vaults under the train tracks, have become a chic casual dining retreat, with 140 seats in the restaurant alone, a bar and now also a terrace. "Everyone actually knows the place, but nobody had the idea of opening a contemporary restaurant club there," says Brandts. Executive Chef Nadav Kundel is not only good at fish and meat, but also vegan. You can start with "Ajo Negro", black garlic with horseradish cream, broccoli and sugar pea salad, while the main course features a cauliflower steak with lentils, caper sauce and pine nuts. www.papillon-berlin.com





5. Mastan

There are quite a few French restaurants in Berlin, but none embody typical bistro cuisine and culture quite as authentically as the new Mastan in Kreuzberg, located on the busy Gneisenaustraße. This is mainly down to chef Yann Mastantuono, who hails from Marseille, and who serves up the cuisine of his homeland in a simple and elegant ambience in an excellent and extremely creative way. This comes as no surprise, as he was previously head chef at Alain Ducasse's bistro "Aux Lyonnais" in Paris, a real institution in the French capital that is dedicated to Lyon's down-to-earth cuisine. So Mastantuono really knows how to do it. The menu changes regularly and the seasons determine what's on the table. August, for example, was characterized by marinated sardines, chicken terrine with tomato and basil, iced pea cream soup with pimenton and mozzarella, monkfish à l'Armoricaine and a traditional "soupe au pistou", the likes of which can only be found in Marseille. Speaking of Marseille: many regulars keep coming back for Mastantuono's bouillabaisse. Every Wednesday there is therefore a special bouillabaisse evening called "Seaside Delights". Fairly priced organic and natural wines from France, Germany and Austria are served. www.restaurantmastan.com





6. Le Consulat

In addition to Mastan, another French restaurant has just opened: Le Consulat has opened in the premises of the former cult pub "Leibnitz-Klause" in Charlottenburg. Not much is left of the former pub ambience. Instead, there are mint and petrol-colored walls, granite wooden tables, velvet-covered chairs and large-format pictures with lush green ferns on the walls. The elegantly casual interior is as harmonious as chef Bennie Fischer's cuisine. His dishes, traditionally French with German influences and local produce, are tasteful but have an exciting twist. For example, a chicken liver terrine with a subtle hint of cognac is served alongside sardines coated in corn semolina on a sauce gribiche. Equally delicious: "false snails" made from Charolais beef mince gratinated with nut butter, ox cheeks in a red wine sauce with beer batter flakes or loup de mer with saffron fennel. This is accompanied by a carefully compiled wine list with predominantly conventional wines, which go wonderfully well with the creative cuisine. www.le-consulat.de