Travel Eats documents my food adventures while traveling.
You might be expecting my post about Berlin to be all schnitzel and bratwurst, but it was actually a rather culinarily diverse trip. Things started off strong with a wood-fired pizza at LuLa in Friedenau (no relation to the beloved Lula Café in Chicago, but the vibe was in fact quite similar). The somewhat eclectic combination of goat cheese, red grapes, balsamic vinegar, and honey turned out to be a total hit, especially paired with mint-garnished ginger lemonade.
On the other side of the global spectrum, we dined at an Egyptian restaurant one evening, settling into plush floor-level couches and diving into colorful shared plates. My favorite dish was this tagine, a clay pot brimming with warm-spiced tomato sauce, potatoes, meatballs, and a soft-boiled egg.
Berlin also had a few sweet surprises in store, most notably the best macarons I’ve had in years. The beautiful plum, pistachio, and caramel varieties all packed enormous flavor and really left me thinking I was in France instead of Germany. I also found Berlin’s coffee to be excellent across the board, all the way down to this cappuccino at a darling café right next to one of the S-Bahn stops.
Of course, I had to try a little bit of traditional fare, and currywurst seemed like the right place to start (the memory of one at Dublin’s Oktoberfest was still fresh in my mind). This sliced sausage doused with smoky ketchup and curry powder served as a nice hearty snack while I strolled around the Arkonaplatz flea market.
And there was beer, too; don’t worry. I was excited to go local at what seemed to be Berlin’s premier craft brewery, Eschenbräu. I sampled both the Dunkler Bock and the Pils (dark and light, respectively), and found them to be more complex and nuanced than I expected. I hope the craft beer scene continues to grow in that city!
It was fun to try a traditional brunch buffet as well. Schwarze Pumpe’s version included a smattering of meats, cheeses, eggs, breads, and spreads, plus the ever-present yogurt, fruit, and muesli cereal. Small tastes of many things is exactly how I like to eat anyway, so it worked out well.
The details: LuLa am Markt, Lauterstr. 14; Schwartze Pumpe, Choriner Str. 76; Trödelmarkt Arkonaplatz, Arkonaplatz; Du Bonheur, Brunnenstraße 39 ; Baraka, Lausitzer Platz 6; Hausbrauerei Eschenbräu, Triftstraße 67; S-Café, Bahnhofstraße 4c; all Berlin, Germany.