Insider Tips from the VELVET Team

Katjes Café Grün-Ohr

Seductively fragrant, freshly baked, still warm brownies for breakfast! Welcome to Katjes Café Grün-Ohr. Here you’ll find everything from tempting veggie cupcakes with heavenly toppings to refreshing juices, yoghurt drinks and specialty coffees. Of course, we also get to sample the Katjes brand vegetarian fruit gums including the namesake “Green Ear Rabbit”. A paradise for anyone with a sweet tooth!

Lindner

Lindner specialty food shops, with locations in Berlin, Hamburg and Potsdam, are veritable wonderlands for gourmets. The enormous selection includes fine pâtés and hams, specialty cheeses, the famous Lindner butter and original Berlin meatballs. According to Bastian, every family has its own secret recipe for how to make them. We sample the typically German Leberkäse meatloaf with a choice of sweet mustard, tarragon mustard or ketchup. This is a new culinary experience for many of the foreign visitors. Topping it all off: a piece of butter cake with the exquisite Lindner butter – sheer poetry!

All in One kebab shop

Long lines form around lunchtime at the famous All in One kebab shop in Rosenthaler Street. Quite understandable, given that kebab is the most popular snack in town – and given the amazing selection of veggies and salads on the side. All in One makes everything fresh in house, even the sauces – herbs, garlic, hot –are home-made. After filling up here, we cross the street and immerse ourselves in the Hackesche Höfe courtyard complex where we check out the Eat Berlin delicatessen shop with selected artisanal products from local producers.

Eisenberg’s Café & Bistro

Our next destination is at Eisenberg’s Café & Bistro located at Sophienstraße 5 – just a stone’s throw from Hackesche Höfe. Awesome ice cream, fantastic quiches and sensational macarons are waiting to be sampled – with a selection that spans the range from lemon to caramel. As an encore, the chef treats us to an ice cream cone of our choice. We’ll be coming back here!

Curry61

But no food tour of Berlin is complete without the city’s most famous snack: currywurst! The average Berliner eats 20 of them a year, says Bastian. The lines at the popular Curry61 are as long as can be expected, but the wait is worth it. We enjoy every last bite and are already looking forward to chasing it down with a beer at Brauhaus Lemke, Berlin’s first craft brewery, where we raise a toast to our gourmet journey.

Berlin Food Tour
www.berlinfoodtour.de

But where do you turn to for the hottest new foodie locations? Who can tell us the real insider tips in this vibrant city, a city that reinvents itself every day? Guide books are pretty sparing in offering useful inside information, and even the Internet often has little in the way of up-to-date news.

Our man for all the latest, hottest, most happening information in Berlin is Bastian Schwithal. For the last two years, he has done almost nothing except take tourists – and Berlin locals – to the most unusual (and unusually good!), sometimes hidden (also good!) cafés, bars, pubs, shops and restaurants in the German capital. His list of possible destinations is as diverse as the city itself: beer & currywurst, chocolate, coffee and cake, or a jaunt around the local hood. On top of that there are tastings, from craft beer to champagne and Riesling to absinth and vodka. We chose the “Berlin Mitte Food Tour”, which begins not far from ARCOTEL Velvet Berlin, and share with you here a short summary of our experience(s).

The “Berlin Mitte Food Tour” takes you on a culinary journey through the city. You will take part in 10 tasting sessions with individual stories and you can start close to the ARCOTEL Velvet.

IF YOU LIKE TO TRY OUT AND DISCOVER NEW THINGS, YOU SHOULD GO ON ONE OF THE BERLIN FOOD TOURS! BASTIAN SCHWITHAL WILL TAKE YOU TO A TOTAL OF TEN STOPS ALONG THE WAY.

Curious? All the info about the Food Tour: www.berlinfoodtour.de