‘Essen & Trinken’ Archives
(English) Five Elephant
Natalie Holmes drops in to her neighbourhood cafe to find out what all the fuss is about... I walk through the door of Five Elephant exactly one year after it opened - but there appears to be no time for birthday celebrations. Out front, customers mill about or sit absorbed in laptop land. Just beyond them, a roasting machine is working its magic, surrounded by a crew of human assistants overseen by co-owner Kris. In the background, Kris' partner Sophie prepares a generous batch of [...]
(English) 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 (XX%), 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 city. Two years ago, Diana Durdic [...]
Bonanza Coffee Roasters
Vanessa Remoquillo chats to Yumi Choi of Bonanza Coffee Roasters... With her business partner Kiduk Reus, Yumi Choi started Bonanza Coffee Heroes in 2007. Hip yet serious, and competitively priced, the coffee outlet at the Mauerpark end of Prenzlauer Berg was quickly embraced by young, trendy, discriminating Berliners. "This is the new Berlin", a patron sweepingly remarks to friends sampling the coffee for the first time. Whatever that means, Bonanza is doing its bit representing this [...]
(English) 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 [...]
(English) 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 [...]
(English) 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 [...]
(English) Stadt, Land, Fluss
Giulia Pines is impressed by a restaurant that's eschewing 'bio' in favour of the 'local'... Martin Görlitz doesn't like the word 'bio'. True, it has a certain appeal in some ways, but even dedicated bio-product buyers have to admit the original idea has been somewhat obscured in the tsunami of over-priced products, frenzied officialdom and increase in related terminologies like 'organic', 'Demeter' and more. “Bio is a word that the government stamps on products,” he explains, [...]
(English) A Tour of Neukölln’s Berliner Kindl brewery…
Natalie Holmes explores the grand tradition of German beer with a visit to one of Berlin's oldest breweries... The ‘invention of tradition’ is a common practice, one noted among anthropologists as a way for cultures, both dominant and marginal, to reassert their uniqueness in a globalised age of blurred borders. Relatively recent phenomena, such as tartan in Scotland, are discussed as if they are tied to the birth of the culture itself, and often make up an integral part of national [...]
(English) Berlin’s community gardens
Berlin's super-sized community gardens (and why they should be exported to the U.S.)... When I’m in a city, I am drawn to the places in-between. Spaces, I mean, that somehow avoided being paved over, or built upon, or that once held buildings that have now collapsed, the rubble mostly hauled away, leaving only the structure’s ghost all filled up with spindly weeds. Sometimes these spaces are just surprising: When vacant lots are selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars just a [...]
(English) 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 [...]
