Categories
Travel Eats

Travel Eats: Three days in Berlin

Travel Eats documents my food adventures while traveling.

Goat cheese pizza, LuLa am Markt
Goat cheese pizza with red grapes and balsamic-honey sauce and ginger lemonade at LuLa am Markt

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.

Tagine "Marrakech", Baraka
Tagine “Marrakech” with meatballs, egg, and tomato sauce at Baraka
Macarons, Du Bonheur
Caramel, pistachio, and plum macarons at Du Bonheur

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.

Cappuccino at S-Café, next door to the S-Bahn train station
Cappuccino at S-Café, next door to the S-Bahn train station
Currywurst, Arkonaplatz
Currywurst from a stall at the Arkonaplatz flea market

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!

Dunkler Bock, Eschenbräu
Dunkler Bock and Pils beers, both brewed at Eschenbräu

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.

Brunch buffet, Schwarze Pumpe
Brunch buffet with bread, cheeses, eggs, muesli, yogurt & more at Schwarze Pumpe

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.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *