German food can be hard to find in Berlin…read more You can find German food at Prater Garten. Prater Garten has a double distinction. Outdoors, it has the oldest biergarten in Berlin. Indoors, it has an upscale German restaurant of distinction. The biergarten is not my style. If I am going to spend all day sitting outside drinking beer, I want the location to be outstandingly beautiful. Prater Garten's Plain Jane courtyard doesn't cut it. The indoor restaurant though is a different story. This is the traditional German restaurant of your dreams. The Gaststatte was the culinary peak experience of a month of serious Berlin eating. * * * Prater Gaststatte looks just the way you would expect a German restaurant to look. Dark woods. Wainscotting. Cream walls. The menu for both food and drink are limited, although they do change seasonally. This means that they make the same dishes over and over and over again. They have brought them to a high level of perfection. They only serve three beers at Prater Gaststatte, beers they brew themselves. I have no doubt those beers are wonderful. However, Prater Gaststatte had the Holy Grail of what I had come to Germany looking for Artisanal German Schnapps and Artisanal German Distilled Spirits. Bars in Berlin just don't carry those. Prater Gaststatte had a curated selection of six. (Actually a curated selection of five. The sixth item was a traditional Czech rarity.) Indiana Jones had just found his treasure. German Spirits are strong. Judiciousness limited my consumption to three. I went with a Nordhauser Doppelkorn, a Dirker Hasselnussgeist and a Stahl Birnenschnaps. Doppelkorn is a German alternative to vodka. It is 76 proof, just slightly weaker than a traditional vodka. It can be made from any of five different grains, but the rye-malt combo is the most common. The Nordhauser is an eminently superior alt-vodka - consummately smooth yet full of taste. I could have done a string of those happily. The Dirker and Stahl were both schnapps: hazelnut and pear respectively. I have never had a beverage like the hazelnut schnapps. It was not a liqueur. It was a strong brandy. Nothing sweet or cloying here. It was commanding like a brandy but smooth like the Doppelkorn. The hazelnut taste was overwhelming. It was as baritone and nutty as an Amaretto. An utterly unforgettable beverage. I stuck my neck out by going with a pear brandy. Most pear brandies are awful. I had had one and only one in my life that was good, the Finnish product Xante. Nothing is as good as Xante. Xante tastes like the canned pears served in heaven. But the Stahl Birenschnapps impressed. Nothing cloying. A real fresh pear taste. I was a very happy guy. * * * Note that although my beverages were outstanding, The food was even better. Given the quality of my distilled spirits, that last sentence is saying quite a lot. Never mind the strawberries I had for dessert. It is the beginning of strawberry season in Germany, And my meal had been so substantial that anything other than fruit would have been a crime. Spring is asparagus season in Germany. German restaurants will have one third to one half of all the dishes be asparagus dishes. I ate my fair share of mediocre asparagus dishes elsewhere in Berlin. The cream of asparagus soup at Prater Gaststatte is utterly to die for. Nothing tastes more like asparagus than that cream soup. And good cream soups are one of the fundamental pleasures of life. However, the headliner act which blew me away was their Brandenburger Pork Chop. A Brandenburger Pork Chop is a thick double-cut pork chop. The only way to get a "good" pork chop in the United States is to go to a steak house and pay steak house prices. American steak houses typically cheat by cooking it in apple juice so the pork chop gets caramelized. You eat well, but you are still covering up a ho-hum pork chop. This was a we-don't-have-to-hide-under-anything superlative pork chop. Yes there was about a tablespoon of red cabbage on top of the pork chop. It was like a maraschino cherry on top of a huge slab of meat. That pork chop had nothing to apologize for. It was a magnificent piece of meat. Easily a third of it was outer fat - outer fat that had been broiled to perfection. The pork chop fat was the star ballerina. The pork chop meat was the male dancer holding up that ballerina in a romantic pas-de-deux. It was the absolutely perfect pairing. (Anyone who uses that pork chop and ballet to make a joke about "Swine Lake" will be thrown off Yelp permanently.) Suffice it to say, I liked the meat course. Accompanying that was the potatoes au gratin of your dreams, And the green beans with bacon of your dreams. I never wanted to wake up. * * * If you come to Berlin, Come to Prater. Skip the Biergarten. Eat at the Restaurant. Deutscheland, Deutscheland Uber Alles!

Just noting that as of this review the hours are incorrect on Yelp so better check the website…read morebefore you go. It opens at noon, not 6pm on Saturdays. There are plenty of tables with communal seating. It wasn't super busy when I was there but admittedly the weather was pretty poor so I imagine it gets buzzier when the sun is out. I ordered a beer, some sauerkraut and a pretzel. Beer was nice, as was the food. Pretzel seemed stale upon initial inspection but was actually pretty good. They have mustard on the side. Overall, didn't wow me, but it was a nice stop and I'd recommend for someone wanting a chill biergarten to visit in Berlin.

Visited on 10 April 2023…read more Tried: carrot cake slice (€4.50) Thoughts: - delicious and perfect to share -- brought cake to enjoy in the park on a sunny spring day - i was so jazzed that this didn't have any nuts in it as carrot cakes usually do - love this brunch spot as it's great for takeaway sweet + coffee, or to sit down for a tasty and unique meal - amazing interior and love the attached general style store for home goods and grocery items

Succulents. Overpriced trinkets displayed in a rustic-looking general store (à la San Francisco,…read moreLos Angeles, and Brooklyn). A mid-century modern aesthetic catered toward the modern Instagram success. Yep. Chances are, if you've seen pictures of a dimly lit hipster interior design Instagram account, you've probably seen all there is of a place like Hallesches Haus. It's nothing novel, but if your Instagram bookmarks are full of photos that look just like the restaurant interior, you'll happily eat up everything this place has to offer--food and aesthetic. Right on the canal, Hallesches Haus is a short walk from Hallesches Tor (surprise, surprise). The restaurant has two entrances, so you'll either find yourself stumbling straight into the general store or into the back area, where you'll have to walk past diners and a coat rack to make your way to the counter to order. It's an absolute nightmare finding a place to sit on weekends, as you'll either be constantly bumping elbows with the people sitting next to you or awkwardly hovering above people, hoping that they'll get the memo and hurry up. In other words, ignore what it says on Yelp about Hallesches Haus being "good for groups." (Unless you're a group of at least six, because then you can reserve a table.) Luckily, the prices are fairly reasonable for such a hip place in Kreuzberg. You can get away with breakfast and a coffee for under €10 AND be able to pay with a debit card. Small victories, I suppose, because you'll probably be waiting a while for a table AND your food. The brunch menu changes every weekend, but I've ordered some variation of their French toast every time I've been here. Kudos to the team for experimenting with interesting flavors. One of my personal favorites was the Banoffee French toast, complete with banana, whipped salted caramel (which is to die for), vanilla cream, a butter biscuit hazelnut crumble, topped off with ginger syrup. For €8.90?! Well, that's one thing that this place doesn't have in common with its stateside doppelgängers...