Nocti Vagus

"Nicht sehen heisst anders sehen." Berlin's "dark" restaurant and club, where the entire meal is served in total darkness. Menu (readable) and more at Nocti Vagus

We received a comment from a reader in 2006:

I went to the dark restaurant the other night, and it was an excellent experience, but unfortunately not for the actual food. In terms of food it was one of the worst restaurants I've ever been to, of any cost, and this was in fact maybe the most expensive I've ever paid for (a friend and I paid a total of 80 euros for the 3 course meal and one drink each). I had the vegetarian meal, and my friend had the seafood, and we both had the same experience. The salad and soup was fine, but the main course and dessert was terrible. It seemed a lot of the food wasn't fresh (e.g. crumbed fish-finger nuggets in salad, canned fruit), and my main course consisted of a lot of tough, spongey material (I think oyster mushrooms and wheat-based meat substitute, which tasted like it had been cooked in animal fat), soaked in a cheesy sauce, and some fairly plain cheesy potato fritters. My dessert seemed to be quite tasteless canned fruit (served in the syrup). It seems the reviews from a few years ago rate the whole thing highly, but I saw one recent one that reported the same experience we had - "you guide the fork to your mouth in the dark to bite down on chunks of fat, and most of the rest of the meat consists of cords". However, it was great fun, and I would still recommend it, one just has to be prepared to hate the food.

Saarbrücker Str. 36-38 (not sure if this is actually Mitte or Prenzlauer Berg)

QBA

Orienenburgerstr, Mitte

I'd call this a bar, although the food is very good too. The cocktails are very good but spendy - happy hour is until 8 if I recall. Actual Cuban staff, and on weekends, live, free music. A fun destination bar when you're feeling happy and have some euros to spend. Try the mixed tapas if you like fried things. Classy.

Gorki Park

Weinbergsweg 25, Mitte (at the Rosenthalerplatz U-bahn)

I'll call this a restaurant, because the beer is just plain old Radeberger but the food is really special. The Borscht is vegetarian and fantastic. The Pelmini, little dumplings, are good too. And if they have wildgulaschsuppe that day, don't miss that either. Good people watching, cute Russian waitresses. Slide projector shows images of Russia on the wall. Non-smokers beware.

Updated November 2005. I was just back in Berlin for the first time since 2002, and Gorki Park's even nicer now. It's expanded into the neighboring space, and now feels a lot less cramped. It's been attractively redecorated, and isn't quite as Slavic as it once felt; it's now just a very pleasant cafe with stylish 60's furniture.

Schwartzwaldstube

Corner of Tucholskystr and Linienstr, Mitte

Great place to get a schnitzel, spaetzel or a flammkuchen, which is a little pizza type thing. Also good beer selection, nice atmosphere. Apparently they also have a good breakfast there. Try the Schwartzwald Pils, it's tasty.

Al Rai

Grosse Hamburgerstrasse, near the intersection with Oranienburgerstrasse. Al Rai is both a sit-down restaurant and a tiny imbiss next door. It serves hands-down the best chicken shawarma and falafel available in Berlin, at least in Mitte. That's due mostly to the homemade bread (no pittas out of a bag here) and blistering hot mango sauce. The chicken isn't too greasy, and you'll usually find some fried potatos or other vegetables tossed into your wrap. I'd bet the other dishes are as good, but to be honest, I'll never order anything but the shwarma. Shawarma and falafel are both about 2.80 Euros (in September 2002).

Babel

Kastanienalle 33. A Lebanese take on the standard falafel/ shawarma/ hummus. The shawarma isn't up to the high standards and shwarmatic genius of Al Rai, but it's pretty good, if a tiny bit greasy. Execellent falafel, though, and everything else is great and cheap: about 5 Euros for a huge shawarma platter with vegetables. The hummus, in particular, is very fine and contains about as much garlic as I think is possible. The staff is nice as well, and were kind enough to throw some extra desserts into our take out bag of baklava.

Marcan's

French-owned coffee bar at the Zinnowitzer Strasse U-Bahn, walking distance north of the area around Oranienburgerstrasse. There’s nowhere to sit down, but Marcan’s serves the cheapest and best Latte Macchiato in Berlin, and every other coffee drink here is almost as good. The real bargain here is the luscious sandwiches (eaten cold) and baguettes (warmed on the griddle): wonderful hams and cheeses, vegetarian options, marinated chicken, and more all on big fresh baguettes for between 2 and 3 Euros.

Solomon Bagels

Potsdamer Platz Arkaden, top floor. Sort of expensive, but the only place in Berlin where you can get real, honest-to-God bagels. In 2002, they were .80/per, which is kind of expensive.

Gorki Park

Weinbergsweg 25, about twenty meters from the Rosenthalerstrasse U-bahn. The attraction of Gorky Park is its Sunday brunch. Arrive promptly at 10:00am to get a seat for this vast feast of Russian and German deliciousness. I’m not even sure what I ate, but it’s all great. The spread includes decent green and fruit salads—which can be hard to find at other Berlin brunches—and at least one soup.

Kapelle

Zionskirchplatz 22-24. Kapelle is the best of several cafes around the Zionskirchplatz just off Kastanienalle on the border between Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg.

Kappelle's mostly-bio/organic approach really works at breakfast: the pricey but giant and wonderful Kappellenfrühstuck includes several Spanish cheeses and meats. It can serve 2. Even the Kleines Früstuck is good-sized. Great coffee as well; try the Cortado. There's usually a good selection of English and German newspapers and magazines.

Weirdly, in 2005, three years after this entry was originally written, I visited Kapelle again and heard what I'm quite sure was the same CD of pleasant though forgettable jazzy electronic music that I'd heard on every visit back in 2002. Food's still good though!

Viva Mexico

Chauseestrasse 36. This Mexican restaurant is a bit north of the usual places (you’ll have to walk up Chauseestrasse north of the Zinowitzerstrasse U-Bahn a couple of blocks), but it’s one of the only Mexican places in town worth bothering with. It’s actually Tex-Mex (said the ex-Austin resident snobbily), which means all your cheesy, greasy favorites. Although they’ve had to compromise on some of the ingredients, this is pretty good stuff. Keep in mind that no Mexican food in Berlin will be as cheap as you’d think; we paid 7 or 8 Euros for enchiladas in 2002. The staff is a Mexican-American family, so all the waiters speak English.

Zionskirchplatz

This platz around the crumbling Zionskirche is (in 2002) one of the most desirable places to live in Mitte. It’s a few blocks from Oderbergerstrasse and just off Kastanienalle, and right around the corner from the Arkonaplatz junk market on Saturdays. My favorite breakfasts are served at Kapelle (but avoid the run of the mill Kommode on the opposite corner). Wander around the streets to the northwest to find the path of the Wall preserved in the Mauerpark. The neighbourhood is a nice mix of lavishly restored streetfront houses and more normal hofs (back courtyards) for artists and students.

Kastanienalle

This long street starts as Weinbergsweg where it runs from Rosenthalerstr. U-bahn up an actual hill (!) into Prenzlauer Berg at the Eberswalderstrasse U-bahn. Along the way, it manages to include painfully hip coffee shops (like Galao at the bottom, where the “galao” coffee and Portugese pastries are great), decent Mexican food (Speedy Gonzalez), and one of the biggest rip-off cafes around (Einen Sontag im August, sure the all-you-can-eat brunch is only three euros, but so’s a small coffee). Der Imbiss (its logo is the McDonald’s M upside down) serves cheap pizzas on fresh Indian naan bread. We’ve found nice wedding and thank-you presents at Peg’s, a good gift shop at the corner of Weinbergsweg and Fehrberlinerstrasse.

Tiergarten

It can take a while to get away from the noise of cars and buses speeding through the four-lane rounds that chop Tiergargen into sections. Like in most Berlin parks, the designers of the Tiergarten managed to include enough little hidden paths and tiny clearings to keep you exploring. On sunny days, the big fields south of the Siegesaule are packed with naked people slowly turning their skins into rich Corinthian leather. A couple of these areas are predominantly gay and very crowded, but there’s plenty of room here for everyone. There’s almost nowhere to get snacks or drinks once you enter the park, so pack somethingif you’ll be there for a while. The Café am Neuen See, nearly all the way West to Zoo Station, is a pleasant biergarten with some prime spots along the deck by the pond. For some reason, they serve great-looking stone oven pizzas, although I haven’t tried them.