‘Meet The Locals’ Archives
Mundraub
Sanna Akehurst profiles Mundraub.org, a company committed to mapping the nation’s publically available fruit… Starting life as a small blog with the support of around 100 faithful supporters, Mundraub.org has been busy building up an ever increasing database of trees and plants in public places around Germany that we, the general public, can apparently help ourselves to. According to Daniel Nielsen, one of Mundraub.org’s founders, the concept of helping yourself to Germany’s [...]
Pieces of Berlin
Carlijn Potma chats to photographer Florian Reischauer about his Pieces of Berlin project... Austrian photographer Florian Reischauer is the founder of ‘Pieces of Berlin’, an appealing photoblog focused on the Hauptstadt. Bored of his hometown Vienna and longing for something new, Reischauer made his move to Berlin in 2007. As photographers tend to do, he began capturing the city and its inhabitants. His collection of images kept growing and Reischauer started to look for a [...]
Memory Vintage (Shop & Café)
Carlijn Potma delves deep into Berlin's Memory Vintage shop & cafe... Everytime I cycle down Schwedter Strasse there is one special place I can’t bear to ride past. Located nearby the busy Schönhauser Allee, Memory Vintage - a curious shop brimmed with things we deem call ‘retro’ - just keeps on luring me in with its nostalgic atmosphere that transports me into the past. Memory is not only a store - the eponymous café next door is part of the business, run by [...]
The Dummkopf’s Guide to Subletting
James Glazebrook of Überlin gives us his tips on subletting in Berlin... When you arrive in Berlin, chances are you’ll end up in a flatshare or a sublet. While we’ve no experience of the former, having too many things (and cats) to squeeze into a single room, we can impart some wisdom about the latter. On paper subletting is straightforward – you pays your money (bills included) and move into an apartment which is set up with everything you’ll need for your first few months in [...]
The Way Of Tea
Marian Ryan visits Runge & Graf and explains why tea could - or should - be the new coffee... Beat icon Jack Kerouac once described the memory-soaked Proust as “an old teahead of time”—given the seminal role of a pot of tea and some bits of madeleine in the opening of Swann’s Way—and encouraged aspiring writers to be the same. Though the hard-drinking Beat may have been speaking in metaphor, the link between tea and creative inspiration is an article of faith for Berlin tea [...]
Not A Wooden Spoon
Carlijn Potma pays a visit to one of Berlin's thriving eco-furniture shops... Housed in one of the few non-renovated GDR-style buildings left on Prenzlauer Berg's Oderberger Strasse, Not A Wooden Spoon is a small store with an interior - and concept - every bit as alluring as its raw exterior. The wooden terrace and lattice work of the shopfront hint at what’s inside, namely desirable handmade furniture. London-born Michael Ferguson started the shop almost two years ago and makes [...]
BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer
Despite a deliberate lack of branding and/or marketing, Berlin's BIER has created a buzz... Honesty and good taste - figuratively and literally - are what distinguish BIER from other local breweries, according to company founders Johannes Schwaderer and Stephan Alutis. The Berlin duo founded their beer concept as a counter-movement to over-promoted, more commercial brands. According to their manifesto, great taste doesn't need a name - and certainly doesn't need a logo, TV spots, useless [...]
Berlinica – books about Berlin
Carlijn Potma chats to Eva Schweitzer, a native Berliner who has set up a publishing company dedicated solely to publishing books about Berlin... What inspired you to start a publishing company focused on books from and about Berlin? I covered Berlin as a journalist for a long time, even before the Wall fell; when I came to New York, I noticed quickly that Berlin was a major topic. Also, I was always delivering information from America to Germany, and I felt it was about time to do it the [...]
Cookies Cream
Paul Sullivan tries out some innovative vegetarian cuisine at 'underground' restaurant Cookies Cream... The first challenge for any visit to Berlin’s hippest vegetarian restaurant Cookies Cream is finding it. Run by Cookies, veteran party promoter and founder of the popular club located below it, the restaurant adheres to the ‘underground/anonymous’ ethic so popular in Berlin’s house and techno scene. “But it’s located directly above the club”, I hear you cry, “surely it [...]
Hauptbahnhof: the non-kiez
Berlin resident Giulia Pines reflects on the strangeness of living in a neighbourhood that's not quite a neighbourhood... How does one write about a neighborhood that is not a neighbourhood? A neighbourhood still so much under construction one cannot even use that well-worn phrase “not so much a neighbourhood as a state of mind” (“not of an age but for all time”?) to describe it? A neighbourhood whose future identity is still so much in question, we are awoken day and night by [...]
