‘Shopping’ Archives
Sing Blackbird
Tam Eastley profiles vegan-vintage concept store and cafe, Sing Blackbird... It's no secret that finding a job in Berlin isn't easy. With the highest unemployment rate in all Germany (12.7% compared to a 6.5% national average), Germans and ex-pats alike need to be increasingly creative when it comes to finding a job, or find themselves forced to leave and look elsewhere. While this can be a struggle and a stress, it also accounts for the abundance of small, creative businesses here in the [...]
Another Country
Marian Ryan profiles one of Berlin's most characterful bookshops... In November 2010, one of the world’s best-known travel-guide brands, Lonely Planet, named Berlin’s Another Country among the top ten bookshops in the world. The quirky, thirteen-year-old Kreuzberg institution took its place at number six, alongside legends like Paris’s adored Shakespeare & Company and San Francisco’s iconic City Lights. Not a few jaws dropped among the Berlin literati. “None of the other [...]
Berlin’s Xmas-friendly Food Shops
Molly Hannon presents a Christmas-friendly selection of Berlin food shops, covering sweet treats and spicy cured meats, eye-opening espresso and domestic and imported libations... Kadó Licorice: it's an acquired taste. A relative of aniseed and fennel, it's touted for its health benefits and benevolence towards the digestive tract. Its distinct flavor and somewhat odd appearance make it a peculiar confection, but one with a seductive and dark allure. Located on Grafestrasse is Kadó - [...]
Berlin’s Best Christmas Markets
Ruth Michaelson profiles the best Christmas Markets in Berlin for 2011... The temperature has gone sub-zero and anything you plan on consuming had better taste of cinnamon or come mit Schuss. With Berlin playing host to over sixty Christmas markets annually, there’s no shortage of places for you to get your fix of Lebkuchen and gifts in the frosty open air… Best Of The Big Hitters Gendarmenmarkt The sparkliest of them all, lit with all the double-Dom grandeur you’d expect [...]
Bamboo Bicycle Club
Jack Orlik talks to bamboo bike creator Dan Vogel-Essex... The workshop stands in a triangle of land carved up by industrial bars of steel: frontiers formed by the S-Bahn and national railway tracks that bring trains thundering past every few minutes. "It's a shame you didn't get to see it in the sun. It can be really quite beautiful", says Dan Vogel-Essex, gesturing over the scrubland that was once a trainyard. The sky has clouded over, and the thick metallic smell of rain begins to [...]
Slow-style Xmas shopping guide 2011
Natalie Holmes rounds up a selection of Berlin shops with a local, sustainable, eco and fair trade twist... E.M. Forster once described Christmas as a time when “vulgarity reigns”. Indeed, a century later, cynics are quick to dismiss the festive season as little more than a thinly veiled ploy to ramp up consumerism to ever-giddier heights. Still, for the optimists among us, the act of giving and spirit of goodwill -- however clumsily expressed -- can still be a way to celebrate the [...]
Record Store Day Berlin
Record Store Day is a new event which will be taking place in Berlin alongside the BerMuDa festival on the 5th of November. The idea behind the event is to create a special day for record shops across Berlin who will offer one-off exclusive releases from leading record labels and in-store performances from affiliated artists. Some of the labels that are taking part on the release-side are Dirtybird, Get Physical, Monkey Town, Wolf & Lamb and Hypercolor, and more. Interview with Oye record [...]
Biblioteca Culinaria
Peggy Schatz drops into Berlin's new place for cookbook collectors and enthusiasts - the Bibliotheca Culinaria (Culinary Library). By definition, Bibliotheca Culinaria is a second-hand bookshop specialising in cookbooks. But if one reads between the lines -- or has a chinwag with the owners, Swen Kernemann-Mohr and Johannes Mohr -- it becomes clear that Bibliotheca Culinaria is much more. For 30 years these men from the Rheinland, who previously ran a flourishing florist, indulged [...]
Dong Xuang Center
Marian Ryan visits Lichtenberg's Dong Xuang Center and takes a closer look at Berlin's Vietnamese community... To any casual visitor, it’s obvious: Berlin, in many ways, is a mess. Despite twenty years of rebuilding and gentrification, of whitewash and polish, you’ll find prairie-size empty tracts just west of shiny new Potsdamer Platz and grimy, windowless buildings in Prenzlauer Berg. Decay and regeneration, subtle processes in most places, here are on brazen display. This [...]
Boxhagener Platz Food Market
Peggy Schatz finds fine foods and good vibes at Boxhagener Platz's Saturday Food Market... There are almost as many food markets in Berlin as there are districts - each one embedded in its Kiez like a pearl. There are big, shiny ones like the ones on Kollwitzplatz in Prenzlauer Berg and Winterfeldtplatz in Schoeneberg, plus smaller ones that are barely noticed and some wonderfully unique ones in between. One of the best known - and most-loved - markets in Friedrichshain takes place [...]
