I went to Brooklyn Beef Club tonight. Three of my friends have raved about it (all men). One has visited so often he has earned a plaque with his name on it. When I heard, I marveled at the financial...
You need to have a compelling reason top open an ice cream shop in Berlin. I say this because ice cream is the number two most popular thing to eat here after sausages. You can’t find a cluster...
Two years is the length of time t it took me to concede that “White asparagus is not that bad.” I would go as far as to say: “It is rather good. “For the last couple of spring...
HBC. is the most complete embodiment of Berlin I’ve encountered in a restaurant, in my two years of eating out in the city. To begin with, the train stop is Alexanderplatz- a cluster of mismatc...
There is something about the combination of the gold lettering and the white pleated curtains in the window of Da Baffi that makes me think of an old-fashioned box of chocolates. The kind where once ...
On the right side of the cavernous Bar Celona restaurant on Hannoversche str is the tiny focaccia deli run by a brother and sister team from Italy. Underneath a silhouette of a pig, ears askew, ̵...
In Athens, I regress back to the lazy teenager I once was. Even though it’s May, it’s hot enough that my brain begins to tick into action after the sun has set. Even then, there is only a...
As I was getting out of my car in the parking lot in front of Centro Italia, a beat up old Alfa Romeo came careening down the hill – gravel flying off to one side. He switched off the engine be...
I’ve never been to papa Fleury or the original CafeFleury (no website so have a look on the HG2 write up here) as it’s known across the street. The blue awning caught my eye as I trundled...
Prunes. Thumbs up? Thumbs down?For me? Definitely thumbs up. No question. No contest. Sometimes I prefer them to the real deal (plums). (Without me being to indelicate or unladylike, let me underl...
Every neighbourhood in Berlin has its own weekend food market, except where I live in Mitte. I am not going to count the clutch of stalls in front of Butler’s at hackescher markt as an authenti...
We were out this morning when our Amazon packet arrived. An office in the building accepted the parcel for us. When we saw the DHL notice Layla and I did an ‘Amazon dance’ – she bec...
Heston Blumenthal and Raymond Blanc are both self-taught. Unhampered by other people’s ways of doing things they were able to develop their distinctive food personalities. What they don’...
I walked into an opticians the other day, on the Oranienburger Tor side of Friedrichstrasse. The visual clues of the store told me I would be able to purchase something a little out of the ordinary ...
Can it be? One and a half days of brilliant sunshine seem to confirm it. Although the trees are still brown and bare with no promissory green buds.But today as I sat in the courtyard of the Hofcafé i...
Mel and Kelsie are probably strolling down a stretch of beach in Castelldefels as I write this. It was their idea, the Berlin Cooking Club. The inaugural club had just 4 cooks and guests. Then it mov...
When I was doing my MA in London, I met a girl whose last name was Mihai. Her first name was very Romanian sounding as well. “Hi, I’m Suzy.” I smiled “My mother is Romanian.&...
The former food critic of the New York Times, Frank Bruni, visited Berlin a while back. He ate at Noto, Tim Raue, Horvàth and Hartmanns and then wrote an article: “Sorry to Disappoint, but I A...
I remember walking into Restaurant Gordon Ramsay – Royal Hospital Road, it was one of those days when the blustery wind was making the rain come at me in horizontal sheets, from unpredictable a...
Did you know that you can have a two course lunch at La Bonne Franquette for €10? And that includes a drink? Somehow I missed that when I was looking at their website. When the waiter angled the c...
Where I live in Mitte, it’s all concrete, grit and black snow, I was hankering after something different – probably spring but I was willing to settle for a foray outside Berlin. And not...
Expectations are a funny thing. Honed over years of living to have the smallest margin of error possible. People rely on preconceived expectations to a greater or smaller degree, depending. I rely on...
3 Minutes sur Mer! Exclamation point indeed. Ask and certain people will tell you. Berlin isn’t ready for pricey restaurants. That is why so many places open up only to close. The market is ...
I went to Essen Fassen over a year ago and had such a mixed experience that I just took the whole thing, put it on a virtual shelf and promptly forgot about it. Then last week a friend suggested we m...
There is an expected amount of causality in cooking as in life. Want a nice body? Diet and exercise (or if you’ve got a wad of spare cash, lipo and pain). Want to get ahead in the world? Work...
The team behind Sabzi excel at making much out of little. They’ve taken what should be a dark dinky basement space and turned it into a serene place, with abstract filigree wall paintings that...
Despite having a multitude of baking books, too many to count (Ok getting up to count: 28), I tend to return to the same two titles; Baking with Passion (Baker & Spice) and Breakfast, Lunch and T...
Auf die hand is my local. Unexpectedly, it means I rarely eat there because it’s so close to my house that it seems lazy not to take a few more steps to my flat and make my own lunch. On the ...
Besides the glaring whiteness of everything, the first thing you are confronted with, when you walk into your room at the Delano hotel is a solitary Granny Smith apple on a peg. “An apple a day keep...
I visited Zuma in London a few times when I lived there. Not frequently because prices were high and portions tiny. I would end up tallying the beans and working out the price per bean. Inevitabl...
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