Restaurant Rotisserie Weingrün, Berlin, Germany
5 points
Almost everywhere you can find chicken on a menu at a café, fast food place or any restaurant. Except it is an extraordinary location or perhaps Michelin Star restaurant the typical selection of chicken contains breast, filet and sometimes chicken wings. In Europe usually only Asians offer some different chicken dishes which could include meat of other parts of this ratite.
Weinbar Rutz, Berlin, Germany
“Hans”, Pinot Noir, Hans Herzog, Marlborough, Red-wine from New Zealand
Just a steak! This I love so much about a place like Weinbar Rutz (http://www.rutz-weinbar.de/): on the first floor a Michelin Star restaurant, at the grand level a bar. Coming later the night at 10 pm – after a long day of work – and you get the best food still you can get in town. Without any special arrangements, without the effort of reservation, even not knowing of what you will get since there are always some new or just daily offers. Although season of asparagus started and I could have some first whole I took Prime US Beef as the current piece is in “best age” now – over 50 days dry aged in a smaller drying glassy box in the bar carefully watched by Marco Müller and his team. Super soft, rich of flavors, manly and just rich: a firework of meat flavors. ! Nice of the guys to serve it with something aside: it is not necessary!
7 points for the steak
Continue reading “Weinbar Rutz, Berlin (2. report) & “Hans”, Pinot Noir, Marlborough”
Speicherhotel Barth, Barth, Germany
5 points for the hotel
3 points for the restaurant
It is more than 15 years (!) ago that I discovered this hotel. Perhaps only my second or third time at the Baltic Sea (Ostsee) we stood at a peninsula called Darß (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dar%C3%9F) one the most beautiful areas of Germany (Two to three hours driving from Berlin). It a place of peace, relaxation and refreshment! The fresh breeze from the sea, amazing play of colors of sky and light and surprising changes of weather make for a unique and marvelous getaway.
Crossing a bridge from Zingst, a village on Darß, toward the mainland brings you to Barth. 15 years ago – ten years after “DDR” (German Democratic Republic) – Barth is somehow a perfect case study of the transformation process within Germany.
Restaurant and Winebar in Berlin
7 points
As many of my friends know, my favorite restaurant in Berlin is WEINBAR RUTZ . There are hundreds of trendy places, a remarkable number of Michelin star restaurants in the city and probably some location with a lot of good wine as well. But there isn’t any other place comparable to this one.
It is an easy but unique concept as at the lower level you have rather a food-bar or tavern with slightly more basic but fantastic dishes along the motto “Save the German Food Culture”. You get blood sausages or some liverwurst or rutabaga stew or – at least at the moment “crispy haddock, chestnust, red cabbage and baked kale – but also just a solid “home” aged steak. All this usually is not served with a typical German beer but with the best mostly German (white) wines. You would only very seldom get such high quality wine by the glass anywhere else. This place offers you even sometime a Großes Gewächs (which is similar to a Grand Cru) by the glass and if you become a “friend” of the house, they might open a bottle just for you without letting you buy the entire bottle if you didn’t drink it. If you go for first floor, please ask for the table in front of the kitchen because then you can watch my friend Marco Müller preparing the plates with his amazing and always surprising culinary art and extraordinary taste experience. Here you encounter Chinese or other Asian flavors combined with regional ingredients and condiments. Marco is always spunky enough to present unusual and sometimes, I would say, experimental combinations of taste.
Imren II, Turkish Gasthaus, Berlin, Badstrasse
There are five “Imren” places in Berlin. I haven’t been to all of them, but among three I tested the best is Imren II, on Badstrasse in the Berlin district of Wedding, where many Turkish people live.
Here you can get the best Döner I know. This is serious!
Fresh lean veal gets layered on a spit (It’s called Yaprak) and on the top is a layer of real lamb fat which melts down into the meat due to the heat. Continue reading “Imren II, Turkish Inn (Gasthaus), Berlin (Wedding)”
Facil, Restaurant, Berlin
7 points
As I wrote: Weinbar Rutz is my favorite restaurant in Berlin. This is because of its very special concept of a wine bar and a restaurant. If you ran a real competition between the two very exciting chefs, Micheal Kempf’s style is of course different than Marco Müller’s, but both would deserve two Michelin stars (although only Michael Kempf has two (!)).I really see parallels between the two. Like Marco Müller, Michael Kempf uses mostly regional products but is able to combine those with global and modern flavors. Perhaps Michael isn’t so experimental (any more) and less risky but therefore you are on a safer side with him. His cooking creations are remarkable and just wonderful! I’ve never had a really strange culinary experience there, which I actually have had once a while elsewhere.
Wine and Food 
