Berlin Reified: Food, design and life in Berlin

Prater revisited

The Prater takes on a poignancy as summer draws to a close. Eat your corn on the cob while you still can!

Cafe Liebling Revisited, or Chilly on Helmholtzplatz

For those breathless with curiosity as to the Cafe Liebling (or Liebling Cafe) interior, I was recently back in Helmholtzplatz with a camera. One wouldn't expect lentil soup in July but it's been that sort of summer, sadly, making my voice dip in regret when talking to visitors who read my springtime exulations of how they'd adore Berlin come June.

But the soup was aromatic with herbs and my tabletop matched my Nabokov perfectly, and eventually I even left the shady interior to join the ranks on the sidewalk, shivering ever so slightly in my cardigan but thrilled to see Donna again. (This time the lack of a menu seemed less charming than irritating -- 'How much is that wine exactly, then?' -- but on Helmholtzplatz one needs must forgive places their pretentions.)

Beer gardens in Berlin: The Prater

I know, I know, it's famous, but seriously, it's easy to lose track of the classics, the standards, the places that are wonderful that you take for granted, and so as a reminder to us both this little photo of the Prater, to remind us of its dreaminess in mid-summer, sitting along a yellow table reading, eating a Bratwurst, sharing a Hefeweizen, watching the Berlin fathers chase their tiny children around the chestnut trees...

Prater Garten Berlin, Kastanienallee 7-9 (map)
The beer garden opens at noon daily from April to September provided the weather's fine. The Biergarten menu is sausage-heavy as to be expected but vegetarians can choose between the pasta salad, the potato salad and the cheese kebabs.

Liebling

I forgot my camera when we went to Liebling, but that seems fitting, for Liebling has neither a website nor a card nor a menu printed or chalked nor hardly even a name. 'Liebling' is nowhere to be found without or within except for scribbled across the magazines they keep for their visitors, to discourage pilfering. I think of these as the quiet days, before the place has a name, and we refer to it as the old artists' supply shop (which it was) next to the old Negativeland (whose space Goldhahn & Sampson now occupy).

Of course Liebling is more than an assemblage of absences. Walking in you see the customary extravagent use of lillies, white-on-white avian wall decals, a finely-tiled white barfront, furnishings in white, wood and silvery sage, excellent lighting fixtures (oval cameos of milky light) and everyone there that night was dressed neatly, wore glasses, and looked serious, except for the barman, who was unbespectacled, relaxed and kind. The most surprising element in the place was its "Plat du jour": Grünkohleintopf mit Knacker, a hearty portion of curly kale cooked with onions, bacon bits, potatoes, and pickled pork, and served with a sausage.

Liebling, corner of Raumerstraße and Dunckerstraße (map)
Open daily from 10 or 11 on

Lass uns Freunde bleiben

When Hazelwood grew too loud, we retreated to Lass uns Freunde bleiben ("Let's stay friends") across the street. The cafe/bar was perfect before it became overrun with what Max tipped to be a Swabian youth group and we had to retreat again.

What I liked? Its battered western wall, its prices, its barkeep, its cryptic name, its URL (with an automatic redirect to Ruf mich nie wieder an ("Never call me again")), and I liked sitting slumped in one of the red upholstered chairs, watching the people, drinking Tempranillo, talking to Max.

Lass uns Freunde bleiben, Chorinerstr. 12 (map)
Open Mon-Thu 8 am to midnight, Fri 8 am on, Sat 10 am on