A slightly disappointing date with Berlin’s underground dining scene…

I first heard about Berlin’s Shy Chef around a year ago, when a friend enthused about an incredible, intimate dinner party they’d been to, where they met all these lovely people and ate really exquisite food…“all in the chef’s own lounge!”

Photo courtesy of Shy Chef website

Even then the idea of ‘underground’ or ‘guerilla’ dining wasn’t so new, nor was there a dearth of it in Berlin. For visitors or incoming residents to the city, these eating events are an excellent way to meet lots of new people in a relaxed environment.

Within a few weeks of moving here I’d attended a few, mostly casual, bring-a-bottle affairs in someone’s apartment or a communal house. Simple, tasty food and a great atmosphere in exchange for a modest donation. What’s not to like?

But the Shy Chef looked different, partly because there’s more mystery to it all – the host’s anonymity (or “shyness”), the address only being revealed 24 hours before the dinner date – but also the food seemed of a more professional standard. A quick look at the sample menu on the website revealed dishes like asparagus cappuccino, scallops with orange sauce, cod with rhubarb salsa, all served in “the intimate setting of her own living room”. Obviously a haute cuisine experience as opposed to a talented amateur night.

So it was that a few weeks ago, on a particularly balmy summer evening, I found myself climbing the stairs of the Shy Chef’s building (a handsome Altbau in the ‘bohemian district of Kreuzberg’), the smell of food growing stronger with each step. Inside the apartment I was handed a small glass of champagne and politely ushered into the main dining room.

Photo courtesy of the Shy Chef website

Minimally decorated with bare white walls, tall ceilings and large windows, the room was dominated by a long table draped with colourful tablecloths. It was set for around 14 guests, and though it all felt tasteful enough, it was obvious this was a rental apartment and not someone’s “intimate home”.

Some of the other guests had already assembled in a smaller lounge area next to the dining room. There followed the usual flurry of greetings – hands were pumped and smiles exchanged, names flew up in the air, dangled temptingly for a second then evaporated. There were Canadians, Americans, Spaniards, one or two Germans.

We all took turns stepping out onto the corner balcony and admiring the picturesque street, whose buildings were daubed a lovely golden colour by the setting sun. “Ah, Berlin…”

Our host, an affable, quiet, shaven-headed man of indeterminate nationality, asked us to take our seats. Some hopeless strategic planning on my part resulted in a seat at the head of the table, the majority of my fellow diners beyond conversational reach without the aid of a megaphone.

Fortunately my immediate neighbours – Evan, an upbeat young lady from Seattle who lived in Berlin, and her equally chatty Aunt and Uncle from New York – provided great company. The conversation flowed easily along with the wine – a perfect crisp white – and the food, which began with an impressive, well-presented rocket, mushroom and cheese salad.

The second dish (another salad) also featured rocket and cheese, albeit a different kind of cheese, and was also tasty – though not for the poor lactose-intolerant guest at the other end of the table, who’d allegedly informed the Shy Chef of their special diet prior to the evening. Her replacement was a basic tomato, rocket and asparagus salad – times two.

The third dish was a sloppy, mediocre fennel risotto (in all fairness I’ve never been the biggest fennel fan), presented quite unattractively in a soup bowl. This was followed by an announcement that the next dish might take a while and would we like coffee (filter only) in the meantime? We’d moved onto a robust but smooth Italian red by now and the 45-minutes we waited for our richly decadent beef goulash zipped by. (The vegetarians were served more of that same salad).

Photo courtesy of the Shy Chef website

Dessert was a flavoursome – but far from overwhelming – Pantespani-style sponge cake. Afterward, we waited excitedly to meet the mysterious Shy Chef. Instead of the Scandinavian lady we’d been expecting, a Greek man ambled out of the kitchen, explaining that the original Shy Chef had gone to London to start a similar enterprise and that he – an experienced and qualified chef, no less – had taken over the business in Berlin.

Vaguely charming as this man was, I felt let down. Sure I’d had a nice evening. I’d met some nice people (though not as many as I would have liked, thanks to the numbers), and the food had been OK. But for 62-euros a head it really should have been better – especially for the vegetarians and lactose intolerant among the group – and the revelation that the apartment had once been rented out by Quentin Tarantino didn’t quite compensate for the lack of ‘intimate atmosphere’ advertised on the website.

Talking to my fellow diners after the event, I know I wasn’t alone in feeling a bit cheated, although some of the older guests (all tourists) had been thoroughly enchanted by the event and had no complaints. Perhaps us residents had higher expectations.

It certainly felt more like a tourist event than an opportunity to “get to know the real Berlin” (a claim also asserted on the website). Perhaps the Shy Chef is going through a transitional phase, but on this night it seemed to symbolize the all-too-common problem of a fantastic idea growing popular and expanding away from its original ethos, and the subsequent lack of quality control. It remains a fantastic idea.  Let’s hope they can rediscover their original magic. Or at least change some of the text on their website.

About The Author

Paul Sullivan is a Berlin-based writer & travel photographer and the founder of Slow Travel Berlin. You can check out his personal website here and some of his photography galleries here.

Bookmark to: