Recipefiesta

This article is sponsored by Mercedes-AMG – my opinions are not

The year of 2020 has certainly been a rollercoaster of emotions and the COVID-19 pandemic has affected all business to a varying extent. One industry that’s been affected most severely across the world is the hospitality business. In Germany, restaurants were locked down for weeks and countless projects and events were either cancelled or put on hold over the course of the year. A major cancellation was the Michelin Gala in Hamburg in March, which lead to the announcement of the 2020 Michelin stars being done via an online event on March 3rd.

“Restaurants were locked down for weeks and countless projects and events were either cancelled or put on hold”

One restaurant that received its first star that day was “mural” in Munich, a huge achievement for a restaurant just shy of 15 months open. What the team from mural didn’t know, however, was that they also were supposed to win another award that night.

“What the team from Mural didn’t know, however, was that they also were supposed to win another award that night.”

While the Michelin Galas mostly are known for awarding the legendary stars to restaurants (ranging from 1 to 3, where 3 will grant a given restaurant immortal status), there are today also other awards and one of the most important ones is the ‘Michelin Young Chef Award’, an accolade for chefs under 32 in their respective market who have shown unusual potential during the course of the last year. The Young Chef Award Germany 2020, granted in partnership with performance car manufacturer Mercedes-AMG, was originally scheduled to be handed over as a surprise during the Michelin gala and I was brought onboard to cover this specific price. It quickly became clear to us (meaning AMG, Michelin and myself) that including the award in the digital ceremony wasn’t going to be an option – the value of the award would drown in the online noise of the Michelin stars. We had to come up with a Plan B. After a quick deliberation, it became clear that we had to take this award to the winners and surprise them. Which, in this case, meant going to Munich to see the team of mural.

All the lockdowns and further, pandemic-inflicted complications meant that it would take us until September to execute our grand plan but then, finally, on a Tuesday night, we found ourselves waiting in the courtyard of the Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art (MUCA) in central Munich, when a spectacular looking Mercedes-AMG rolled in. Out of the car emerged two characters, namely Michael Knöller, Global Head of Marketing and Sales from AMG and Philipp Ostbomk, Sales Director B2B DACH from Michelin, and from the trunk they retrieved the trophies and the custom chef jackets for the winners. Minutes later we had extracted mural Head Chef duo Joshua Leise and Johannes Maria Kneip from their kitchen and presented them with the good news. If they were surprised? You bet they were.

mural opened end of 2018 in the building of the Museum of Urban & Contemporary Art, an old power station in the heart of central Munich. “What makes mural special is the contrast between the gritty and highly industrial venue and the elegant fine dining food we serve. Every day we try to create unique things in our kitchen that do the location justice.” Joshua told me after he had put on his Young Chef Award jacket. Him and Johannes met working in the two Michelin star kitchen at Söl’ring Hof on Sylt under iconic chef Johannes King, and during this time they formed a rock solid friendship that eventually led them to take over mural in a shared Head Chef role. An unusual setup that came very naturally to them. Johannes explained their cooking style “We learned to cook very purely and very produce focused under Johannes King and this is certainly still something you can see in the food at mural. I wouldn’t call our cooking style modern Bavarian, but we try to use as much local produce as possible and have developed very strong ties with our producers.” When it comes to receiving the Young Chef Award 2020, they were both slightly overwhelmed with the surprise. ”It’s crazy. We really didn’t expect this!” Joshua pointed out, still with a slightly shocked look in his eyes “Especially not after we already received our first Michelin star this year. That was already a big deal.”

“This is a very important award for us as it honours the highly innovative and important work of the next generation of chefs” Michael Knöller from Mercedes-AMG would later explain to me. “We have been working with Michelin and fine dining restaurants for over half a decade now. Our own work at AMG shares a lot of common values with high end gastronomy: Quality, passion and creativity. Those are as imperative in cooking fine dining food as they are in building high performance cars.” Philipp Ostbomk from Michelin would later add to that: “Everybody knows about Michelin tires and stars, but with the Young Chef Award, we’re really aiming to promote topics that are close to our hearts: Creativity, innovation and young talents. People like the mural team are the leaders of tomorrow and we have been lucky to find a partner in AMG who shares these values with us.” Ostbomk also explained how the winners of the Young Chef Award are chosen by the local Michelin inspectors: “The inspectors that visited mural unanimously recognised that the performance of the chefs, especially considering their humble age of 25 years, was exceptional in every way and that they therefore were perfect recipients of the Young Chef Award Germany 2020.”

After surprising the chefs with the award we were lucky enough to eat the newest menu at mural and make our own opinion of the cooking style we now had heard so much about. The dynamic of the chefs and the space became apparent on every plate. It was remarkable to what extent the kitchen team at mural already had managed to create a unique signature with loads of playful and slightly quirky elements. You could see the setting of the art space in the cooking, many dishes came out the kitchen looking like modern art masterpieces on the facade, while at the same time also packing serious flavour on all spectrums. From the perfect rib bites with pickled cucumber to a corn flan with salad coated in puffed millet that bathed in a vin jaune sauce or an eye-popping red and yellow sturgeon tartar in a goulash sauce. Neo-German with a high cool factor, all served by a very lovely front of house team armed with one of Munich’s most progressive wine lists.

“It was remarkable to what extent the kitchen team at Mural already had managed to create a unique signature.”

A very memorable evening at a restaurant that’s only at the beginning of its journey. A true delight to see such a level of innovation in German kitchens and also that key players like Michelin are rewarding these efforts. The spotlight is certainly on Joshua and Johannes now and only one thing is certain at this point: This is not the last we’ve heard about these chefs.

The post Mural with Mercedes-AMG appeared first on Berlin Food Stories.

Manual Pin Test

The post Manual Pin Test appeared first on Berlin Food Stories.

The rise of a neo-Thai restaurant scene in the last three years has created unprecedented opportunities for Thai eating in Berlin. On one hand, there’s superstar Dalad Khambu’s Michelin starred Kin Dee in Schöneberg with her niche-defying Thai tasting menus. And on the othear there’s the eclectic interpretation of Northern Thai by means of the open fire pits at Khwan’s R.A.W. warehouse. In February 2019, however, a third option that’s at least as interesting as Kin Dee and Khwan emerged on the radar: Khao Taan in Friedrichshain, the inspirational Thai family-style eating concept spearheaded by Gaan Kitkoson.

“The rise of a neo-Thai restaurant scene in the last three years has created unprecedented opportunities for Thai eating in Berlin”

“An invitation to my Thai family dinner” is the first thing you’ll read on the Khao Taan menu – meals at Khao Taan are a reflection of owner Kitkoson’s culinary experience during his youth, a time he spent in a small river town just East of Bangkok. The former lawyer-turned-wedding-planner grew up with his half-Chinese mother and Kitkoson spent the better part of his childhood in his grandparents’ Chinese bakery. The strong influence Chinese food culture has had on him can be traced to his cooking today, that’s also why Kitkoson’s first food venture in Berlin was selling Chinese Boazis at Street Food Thursday and Bite Club.

“…Kitkoson realised that his true food passion wasn’t in Dim Sum, but in showing Berliners what real Thai home cooking is”

While his Baozi business was successful, Kitkoson realised that his true food passion wasn’t in Dim Sum, but in showing Berliners what real Thai home cooking was. He was cooking a lot at home while he watched the first neo-Thai wave materialize around Kin Dee and Khwan and that’s when he decided “Damn it I can also do this” and embarked on a journey to open up his own Thai restaurant. He went back to Bangkok, did an internship at the iconic Thai restaurant Nham (22nd place on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2019), came back to Berlin and found a restaurant space in the Eastern district of Friedrichshain.

Khao Taan means “Rice/Food from my Grandmother” and refers to the heavily inspirational role Kitkoson’s grandmother played in his life. Khao Taan opened in February 2019 on a quiet street in Friedrichshain in a very nondescript venue that could be home to any modern eatery. No Thai decoration, no Thai flag, nothing of the branding you would expect from a Thai restaurant in Berlin. The fact that nothing in this venue tells you that you’re eating at a Thai restaurant is entirely intentional, gone are the usual elephants and bamboo shenanigans, Khao Taan is a contemporary and stylish restaurant which nuclear blasts your Thai stereotypes from the very start.

“Khao Taan is a contemporary and stylish restaurant which wipes out your Thai stereotypes from the very start”

Meals at Khao Taan always come in a menu of six servings and there is no à la carte ordering. The food is designed to be shared between guests and while the structure of meals always remains the same (canapés, soups, relishes, salads, currys, stir-fries and desserts), the actual dishes in these categories are subject to constant changes which reflect seasonality and Kitkoson’s remarkable recipe research process – a story in and of itself as he spends weeks in Thailand every year seeking to unearth the forgotten recipes of certain regions. The menu structure is designed to emulate the experience of a Thai family meal, an intrinsically social occasion “where food always is shared, dishes never are eaten at the same time and nothing is eaten in order”, to say it in Kitkoson’s own words. With the set menu structure, Kitkoson’s Pad Thai-free restaurant (a dish that traditionally is eaten by itself) controls the narrative and makes sure people eat the right things together.

Already the first bite you take at Khao Taan will put all your food senses on high alert, especially if the item between your teeth is Kitkoson’s eclectic version of Miang Kham, the small bethel leaf parcels packed with shallots, chilli, lime peel, coconut and tamarind, designed to explode between your teeth in a firework of spicy, sweet, sour and bitter. General spice levels at Khao Taan? Can be described as intensely moderate with occasional outbreaks of sweat, but most will find it quite balanced (Kitkoson doesn’t eat food that spicy himself).

“…designed to explode between your teeth in a firework of spicy, sweet, sour and bitter”

From the server’s tray the magic of a Khao Taan meal will unfold onto your party’s table. This includes pleasantly sour and utterly delicate seafood in Tom Yum soups or Geang Jeut, as well as Gang Yu Chinese-style pork and seaweed soup. Relishes might not be something that you’re used to from Thai restaurants, but at Khao Taan they’re a staple often in the form of a Young Green Chilli and Mackerel relish which comes with crispy, seasonal veggies as scooping material – a literal dance party for your senses that makes you realize why this is eaten so often.

Yam Ta Wai is the dish people from Bangkok think the rural population eat, okra poached in coconut cream to tender perfection, tossed with banana flowers, green bean, asparagus and poached shrimp in a light saté sauce. A bowl so bloody divine it forever defies the myth that Thailand doesn’t produce any good salads apart from the Som Tam papaya salad. The same can be said about the marvelous vegetarian mushroom laab salad, a dish famous for its use of roasted rice.

“The secret of curry flavor at Khao Taan is literally all in the sauce: curry pastes are ground by hand and the coconut milk is made freshly in the restaurant.”

“There will never be dishes on the Khao Taan menu such as “Green” or “Yellow Curry”, Kitkoson is adamant to point out. “These are descriptions rooted in Western attempts to simplify Thai cuisine and Thai people never use these names”. Instead you’ll be served creations like the Guinea Feel Curry, a marvellous adaptation of a Northern curry dish with Thai apple eggplant, Thai banana and roasted rice packed with earthy and gamey flavors, or the Aromatic Duck Curry, an imported dish from India in which duck’s legs have been slowly poached in fresh coconut milk and then assembled into a curry that draws uncanny amounts of flavour from spices including cumin, coriander seed, Thai cardamom pods and leaves. The secret of curry flavor at Khao Taan is literally all in the sauce: curry pastes are ground by hand and the coconut milk is made freshly in the restaurant. The difference in taste is remarkable and adds a whole new meaning to eating Thai curries.

“…maybe you’ll get to try the best sticky rice with mango that Berlin has to offer.”

So, when you’re done eating all this fantastic food (I didn’t even mention the stir fries they are always great as well!) and maybe you’ve also had a couple of ice-cold Traunstein beers to wash it down or some natural wine – the choice is yours, as a last act you’ll be exposed to another passion of Kitkosan: Thai desserts. And maybe you’ll get to try the best sticky rice with mango that Berlin has to offer.

Khao Taan is a truly remarkable restaurant. Kitkoson and his kitchen team are not into corner cutting and this translates into every bite you take during your visit. If you add in the fact that as a non-Thai person, you’ll most likely not have a point of reference for most of the dishes you’re eating, a meal at Khao Taan will achieve exactly what Kitkoson envisages: A fully immersive and highly educational experience which removes stigmas and challenges your existing perception of Thai food forever.

Truth is, Khao Taan is hands down not only one of the best Thai restaurants you can visit in Berlin right now, it’s really also one of the most meaningful restaurant experiences per se, and you need to go.

Liked this article? Then why not support my independent work on Patreon? 

The post Khao Taan – Dev appeared first on Berlin Food Stories.

Berlin has always been a pizza-loving city, a deep and uninterrupted affection that dates back to the 1960s when Italians pioneered the concept of immigrant food in a post-war Germany. Ever since, the innumerable “Nachbarschaftsitaliener” (neighbourhood Italians) across the Republic have made sure to nourish this affection, establishing pizza at the top of everybody’s favourite meal ranking. In Berlin, pizza has played countless roles over the years from the classic, Italian restaurant version to the sliced square from the Turkish street food joint and, most recently, the hip manifestations of an artisanal food movement. Naming Berlin’s best pizzas from the myriad of available choices is far from a trivial task.

“Naming Berlin’s best pizzas from the myriad
of available choices is far from a trivial task”

Pizza is one of those dishes that brings everybody to the table, from young and old, vegan and omnivore, rich and poor. Who doesn’t love a good pizza served fresh out of a hot oven with a perfect crust, melted cheese, eaten on the spot or delivered to your home? As someone who (literally) grew up on frozen pizza and who dragged their parents to countless pizza joints across the planet (sorry mum and dad), I like to think that I can speak out of lived experience. Yes, my life has been an ode to pizza and as a dedicated devourer of thousands of pies, I now offer you my guidance for a trip deep down the rabbit hole of Berlin pizza.

One might think since Berlin’s pizzaiolos have had 60 years to perfect their art, Berlin’s pizza would have had a long streak of greatness. Unfortunately, this is very far from the truth. I’d actually argue the exact opposite and would even go as far as saying the pizza game in Berlin pre 2015 was notably shit, a problem caused by Berlin’s classic, lethargic condition of low standards and extreme price sensitivity, known to let development in certain food niches suspend entirely. For years I watched the same, substandard pizza slingers get praised to the skies for their lousy baking with even lousier ingredients and it drove me nuts.

But then just like that, something changed and Berlin’s expat restaurateurs sensed a massive, untapped potential within new-age pizza baking. In 2015, over the course of just a few months, Standard in Prenzlauer Berg opened alongside Zola in Kreuzberg, redefining Berlin’s pizza standards, just like that. A year later, Malafemmena in Friedenau opened, founding what I like to call the great “Neo-Neapolitan Pizza Wave” of Berlin (don’t look it up, I just made that up) and establishing an elevation in quality pizza baking which echoed across the city and slowly started dividing Berliners into two teams. The reason for this division was the Neapolitan’s soft, thick-crust pizzas which featured meticulously sourced ingredients from artisanal producers in Italy, blazed to charred perfection for 60 seconds in monstrous, imported ovens at 450 degrees. It was the crust and the softness of the pie bottom that divided people, especially Germans who seemed to have some sort of deep set aversion imprinted into their DNAs against thick pizza crusts and I encountered more than my fair share of self-declared pizza lovers who’d happily stuff their face with the cheapest, industrial mozzarella-from-hell, just as long as it came on a thin and crispy crust.

“For years I watched the same, substandard pizza slingers get praised
to the skies for their lousy baking with even lousier ingredients and it drove me nuts.”

My personal revelation of the sheer existence of an artisanal pizza movement overshadowed any doubt but even I had to admit that for a while, the only option for a quality pizza in Berlin was Neapolitan-style. Luckily, in 2018 we saw the second wave of artisanal pizza baking emerge led by Neukölln’s sourdough pizza bakers, Gazzo, followed later by restaurants such as California-style pizza bakers, St. Bess, as well as Estelle and, most recently, shops like the New York-style slice makers, Magic John’s.

Today, Berlin is a modern pizza metropolis and new pizza makers keep popping up on every corner. There is now an offering of quality pizzas across a wide range of styles, providing countless ways to enjoy spectacular pizza around the clock, regardless of your preferences. I’d go as far as saying that Berlin has one of, if not the, richest pizza scenes in Europe in terms of quality and variety right now, a title I see as only being contested by London.

I’ve spent the last years researching the topic and the time has come to present the updated list of the best pizzas in Berlin. This is by no means a finished list, more than a handful places are hovering on the fringe of it and might make it onto the list in the future. There are also a few, very promising pop-up projects without fixed locations that I’ve chosen to not include here. As always, this list is as alive as Berlin’s pizza scene, so make sure to check back here for regular updates. Now, go forth and devour all those pies.

And if you enjoy this content, PLEASE ALSO SUPPORT BFS and allow me and my team to keep on creating content in this quality. How?  Sign up for a monthly tier on BFS Food Fanatics on Patreon and get even more content as well as access to the secret BFS Forum and Food Fanatic Meetups.

Stay healthy

#SUPPORTBERLINRESTAURANTS

The post The Pizza List appeared first on Berlin Food Stories.

“Will the restaurant business ever be the same?” Since the beginning of the mandated restaurant shutdown three weeks ago due to the spread of the Corona SARS-CoV-2 virus, I’ve been asking myself this very question. At a time where weeks feel like months, only one thing is for sure: We know nothing yet. And this is just the beginning – the beginning of the end for some things, but almost certainly the beginning of something new as well.

“At a time where weeks feel like months, only one thing is for sure: We know nothing yet.”

Every morning after I wake up I go through my messages, emails and Instagram feed to see how Berlin’s restaurants are responding to the crisis. If it’s not my turn to host a fully fledged kindergarten in my house for a pack of wild animals (my kids), I get into my car and drive around Berlin. The car is my safe space, nothing can get to me here. Driving through the city has a meditative effect on me right now, no more traffic jams just empty streets and desolate public spaces sweeping by like an apocalyptic reality. During my excursions I visit the restaurants which have adjusted their offering and are open. We chat at safe distances, I ask questions on how they are coping and adjusting and then I buy whatever food they have to offer. On other days I sit at home eagerly awaiting deliveries from all across Berlin which I photograph before enjoying with my family. At night I sit awake, reading and listening to the roundups from the apocalyptic world of food right now with a growing realization that the restaurant reality we’ve all gotten used to, and the nature of my own work, might come to an end soon.

Will there ever be a “normal” in the world of food again? That’s the question which keeps me awake at night. Whilst a lot of industries are in real trouble, we’re heading towards a full-on paradigm shift in the world of gastronomy right now where a whole new looking “normal” looms on the hazy horizon. Restaurateurs will neither be allowed to operate as they did before, nor will they be able to because of the trauma this crisis has caused. All across the world, restaurants are trying to communicate to legislators that nothing except quick, no-strings-attached financial help will stop the eradication of the industry as we know it. In Berlin, the vast majority of hospitality staff have been sent into “Kurzarbeit”, a governmental employment agency-funded program that covers 60% of net salaries (not taking tips into account) for a time span of 12 months.

In addition, loans have been made available by the state bank IBB, a highly questionable mechanism for businesses such as restaurants (which hardly ever qualify for loans) where borrowing money merely means postponing inevitable bankruptcy. There are also smaller cash payments which have been made available by the state and the federal German government, these are mechanisms that provide temporary relief (if you qualify for them) but when speaking to restaurants, I get the same feedback: It’s not enough and it’s not fast enough. Even the Kurzarbeit money for staff has to be covered upfront by the restaurants – a tough burden for many of them. The fixed costs of rents, insurances, mortgages etc. are immediate and unforgiving for owners and right now, they are mostly on their own when it comes to lightning that burden.

MASS-EXTINCTION ON THE HORIZON

The truth is, anything but a quick return to the exact way things were will cause a tsunami of bankruptcies across the restaurants of Berlin. The industry is trying to cope at the moment, hoping for miracles, but many won’t be able to stay solvent for longer than 1-3 months. Facing the current projections where restaurants might not be allowed to serve customers in-house until May or possibly June (or even later, we have to face this possibility), it remains highly unclear who we’re going to see come through on the other side of this.

“The industry is trying to cope at the moment, hoping for miracles, but many won’t be able to stay solvent for longer than 1-3 months”

As dystopian as this may sound, if you look at the interconnectivity of the food industry we’re facing an even larger, seismic shift in food consumption. If restaurants go under, so do all their suppliers and all their connected businesses from wine and beverage vendors to wholesalers, event businesses, farmers, fishermen and so on. On a larger, macro-economic scale, we have to ask ourselves what will happen with things like real estate when restaurants aren’t able to pay their rent anymore. Maybe David Chang is right with his theory that real estate owners and banks will have to step in and subsidise restaurants for the foreseeable future in order to enable a collective future. And these are just examples, the truth is there are a myriad of other businesses that will suffer or go down with restaurants and the true extent of this crisis will only reveal itself in the course of the next months.

ADAPTING TO NEW REALITIES

The light at the end of the tunnel for me in all this has been the Berlin restaurant scene’s response to the Corona crisis. While other German and European restaurant scenes have remained seemingly shocked with their head buried deep in the sand, Berlin’s restaurateurs started adapting immediately. Right now, not a single day passes without a restaurant re-opening with a highly innovative offering. From simple takeaway food, to meals to heat at home setups, and produce boxes from restaurant suppliers, restaurants are coming up with the most mind-gobbling offerings. Mrs. Robinson’s, Barra and Lode & Stijn have re-launched as sandwich and produce shops with lines of socially distanced guests wrapping around the block to score something from their much sought after takeaway menus.

“Right now, not a single day passes without a restaurant re-opening with a highly innovative offering.”

Nobelhart & Schmutzig and Tim Raue have reimagined their restaurants as full-service delivered dinner packages including beverages, playlists, condoms and virtual dining rooms. The list goes on and grows by the day (check my Lockdown Guides for a selection of my favourite offers) and there’s even a bunch of restaurants not open to the public which are instead involved in charity projects to cook for hospitals, firefighters and other public institutions involved with crisis relief. “Kochen für Helden” by the Tulus Lotrek crew is the most noteworthy one here.

In these times of unparalleled adversity and uncertainty it’s astonishing to see not only the speed with which Berlin’s restaurants are getting up and running again, but also the level of innovation and determination -passion, even- they showcase whilst they do it. I mean damn, I’m not exaggerating when I’m saying that I’ve been eating some of the most memorable “restaurant” meals of recent years in the last weeks, all on the street curb, in my car or within the sanctuary of my own four walls. The sandos by Mrs. Robinson’s? So tasty. The fried chicken sandwich by Barra? Magnificent. The Bara-Chirashi by Shiori? Insane. The quality of the Ernst seafood box? Unreal. I’m certain not just that I will forever remember some of these exceptional foods, I’m also convinced that the restaurants which got back to cooking right away will be the ones to bounce back the quickest once we know the outcome of this crisis.

THE FUTURE IS DIGITAL

I’ve had countless conversations with restaurant owners and workers over the last weeks and when I try to catch a glimpse of the future, I see a lot of things playing out: some are bad, and some really bad, but there are definitely also positive takeaways from all this. “Adversity is a terrible thing to waste” is a magnificent quote which echoes around my head (said by Will Guidara on the “Take Away Only” podcast), and I’m applying this mindset to my personal work where all my freelance writing, travel journalism, food tours, brand collaborations and other consultancy work ceased to exist from one day to another. Almost immediately, I chose to tackle this anxiety-inducing beast of a crisis head-on and started focusing on my amazing Patreon premium community members as well as on my daily reporting from the landscape of updated restaurant offerings. It’s been a steep learning curve and I’m finding a lot of comfort in my close community of food nerds where we discuss lockdown strategies which start with the best takeout food and go on to the best food series on TV, and the best cooking equipment.

““Adversity is a terrible thing to waste” is a magnificent quote, which echoes in my head…and I’m applying this mindset to my personal work”

I’m sure this crisis will have a lasting effect on my professional existence, who knows if there even will be any restaurant writing in the future. Speaking to restaurants in Berlin, I’m certain that the newly developed crisis operations also will have a lasting effect on their future existence. All these forced new learnings based around simpler offerings, online shops, digital payment, marketing and delivery will stick and could even make restaurants question the path they’ve been walking on up until now. Whatever the world of restaurants in Berlin and elsewhere looks like in the future, the ones which have already started adapting are already in transition mode and on the way to changing their existence. Cash is finally going to play a less significant role, but that’s only a side effect. Why scrap an online shop you’ve built when you could just as well can continue using it? Why not continue to make sandwiches if people are lining up around the block for an hour to buy them? Why not sell your suppliers’ produce on if it makes people consume locally and skip the supermarket

THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY

The beauty of all this is that a large part of Berlin’s new offerings are built on community as restaurants are offer help to each other, share advice and best practices on how to secure financial help, lend each other equipment, work together for charity and help each other out with ingredients. It’s bloody beautiful to see this hive-mind flourish at the moment. Looking at how quickly Berlin adapted compared to other cities, I’m convinced that Berlin’s restaurant scene was better equipped to handle this crisis than others. Not because everybody is sitting on a fat cash reserve, quite the opposite actually – it’s the lack of money within the scene that’s keeping people alive. We all came here to chase a dream of some sort and adapting to a new situation with very little money is in our DNA. This crisis is a time where our strongest assets of community and limited capitalism, finally pay off. Of course, a lot of that might also disappear in a future where there’s real money to be made again, but my hope is that this community thinking sticks.

A NEW VALUE PERCEPTION

There are more significant changes than that on the horizon though. Amanda Cohen, an American Chef and a friend of mine, wrote an extraordinary piece for the New York Times which says: “When the seas were smooth, we could all scrape by. But now we know what a storm looks like. And we have to decide if scraping by is good enough.” Margins in the restaurant world have always been too slim, workers always underpaid, the weakest always exploited and appreciation from the guest side always too low. In the U.S. the tip-based system offered an extra vulnerable dimension where there is now no safety net. But in Berlin, guest appreciation and understanding of value has always been notoriously skewed. The days of extra cheap and super affordable Berlin were already ending, but this crisis is finally putting those days to the grave and when it comes to food, that’s a good thing

“The days of extra cheap and super affordable Berlin were already ending, but this crisis is finally putting those days to the grave”

Besides the forced exits, we’re also definitely going to see a massive exodus from staff from the world of hospitality with a lot of people likely to say “screw this, it’s not worth it”. But for those who do make it to the other side of this, we’re gonna have to do better. When Berliners see the majority of their favourite restaurants go bankrupt after a few weeks without guests, they might finally realize what kind of financial reality restaurants really have been dealing with. Once we get to the other side of this, what or whenever that might be, the restaurants that are still left will have to increase their prices and we as guests will have to pay a more realistic price for services rendered. Prices that reflect the true value of exceptional ingredients and craft, but also prices which reflect the full dimension of human capital involved in creating their dining experience. Every employee in every restaurant needs to be on the official payroll and needs to be able to survive on a salary without tips. What we pay will also have to be enough so that owners can put away money for any future crisis, as a pillow for any similar situations to follow.

“But for those who do make it to the other side of this, we’re gonna have to do better.”

Consider this: Step out of your filter bubble for a second and imagine what the current situation must be like for the restaurants you aren’t hearing about, the ones that aren’t on Instagram or Facebook or in the news. Where half the staff might be paid 5€ an hour, off the payroll, and where there is no Kurzarbeit. The Döner shop on the corner, the “Mom and Pop” Vietnamese next door, and the African dishwasher at your favourite fancy Italian place. These are the true silent majority and these people are in deep trouble right now. There is a chance that they won’t be Ok and that breaks my heart. The only way you can make things right for these people and their successors is if you are willing to pay 6€ instead of 3,50€ for your Döner and 15€ instead of 7€ for your Schweinebraten in the future.

MAKING FOOD SIMPLE AGAIN

A major forced learning for myself during this crisis has been to value the small things in life. This virus is the biggest bullshit filter ever conceived, relentlessly exposing insignificance after insignificance in every aspect of our lives. I’m calling my old parents, who are quarantined in Spain, multiple times a day (I hate phone calls but I’m worried sick about my beloved parents), laying out 1000-piece puzzles with my wife (I hate them with a vengeance but I love my wife) and gluing paper binoculars together with my kids (I hate basteln but I love my kids). This mindset especially applies to food and drink. I’m astounded by how intensely I’ve cherished the food and wine I’ve eaten and drunk during these past weeks. When I received a delivery the other day from Apocalypse with bread and pastries from Albatross and cheese from Alte Milch in Kreuzberg (I live in Prenzlauer Berg) I almost started weeping. Same when I unwrapped my stunning Chirashi bowl from Shiori, fried up some Bitterballen from Lode & Stijn and shucked some oysters from Ernst. I just felt so damn happy and grateful to get this produce on my table and it was so special. Generally I’ve made a massive effort to consume locally in the last weeks and I feel spectacular about it, buying as much as possible from my Vietnamese corner shop, ordering new kitchen equipment once a week from my local kitchenware shop and

“This virus is the biggest bullshit filter ever conceived, relentlessly exposing insignificance after insignificance in every aspect of our lives.”

I don’t think I’m going to forget about this feeling after all this is over. One thing is cherishing the local, another is how simplicity is the new black. Berlin’s restaurants are demonstrating it with their new takeout menus, offering food that’s a lot more casual than anything they would ever normally cook. Jürgen Dollase wrote about how we might not have realized before how we’ve been living in a restaurant hype bubble. I strongly agree, and I also believe that this crisis will affect that bubble and possibly even pop it. Who has the time to care for Michelin Stars, Gault Millau points or World’s 50 Best rankings right now? Who even feels like 50-course dinners or eating food where the only purpose is to look good, contain certain luxury ingredients and evoke a sense of novelty? Some people always will of course, but maybe it will be less after this. Import restrictions and guest worker limitations will boost consumer knowledge of localism and seasonality and a newfound appreciation for realness and cooking with integrity might help fuel the back-to-the-roots bistronomy movement we’ve already seen emerge over the last few years. This applies equally to chefs and diners. The result will be a lot of brutally honest cooking without smoke, mirrors and exotic ingredients. That part I’m looking forward to. But it’s going to be a really painful journey until we get there and not everyone is going to make it.

THE END IS NOT NEAR

In the end, I might be wrong about all of this. Maybe everything just bounces back to normal and we’re allowed into restaurants again in a few weeks. But will it really be “normal”? Will we travel the world to eat at restaurants? Will we sit down with our friends for hours in small restaurants and eat from shared plates? Consume food prepared by cooks who don’t live in isolation and who don’t cook with gloves, wear protective masks while they touch and taste your food? I don’t think so. We truly don’t know anything yet and we can’t even imagine what the world will look like in 6 or 12 months. We had a good run in food extravagance, now it’s time to focus on what’s important in food and make sure that the good work isn’t lost for ever. The real danger on the horizon is, of course, that the financial juggernauts of convenience food survive whilst the little guys don’t, but every Euro you spend at your local restaurants and shops makes that less likely. I personally also feel a million times safer buying my food from a quality restaurant instead of buying it from a supermarket, where I have no idea on how the food has been handled.

The challenges the restaurant industry are facing are daunting, but a crisis always creates opportunities. The next year might be the best chance we’ve ever had to accelerate change within topics that have been discussed for a long time. We can’t control this virus, but we can control what we make out of it. It’s up to you and me. Keep on cooking. Keep on consuming restaurant food. Order food from local suppliers. Hang in there.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

“Take Away Only” An extraordinary emergency podcast series about the hospitality industry in crisis by journalist Howie Kahn with American guests from all over the world (don’t miss Will Guidara, Andrew Zimmern, Matt Orlando and especially Nick Kokonas)

The Dave Chang Show with the newest episodes from Chang’s family lockdown (don’t miss the Corey Lee episode)

“Why the Coronavirus Pandemic Could Change Dining as We Know It, Forever” by Lisa Abend on Vanity Fair

“We’re Good in Mayhem” by Lisa Abend on Vanity Fair

David Chang Interview by David Marchese

“Will the Coronavirus Make Restaurants Like Mine Extinct?” by Amanda Cohen for the NYT

“Restaurant Apocalypse” by Kate Taylor for the Business Insider

“Restaurant Diaries” a series of Corona crisis articles by Fast Company

“Kochen für Helden tut einfach wahnsinnig gut” Jan-Peter Wulff interviews Ben Pommer from BRLO Brwhouse

“Kochend durch die Krise” by Eva Biringer for FAZ

The post In the wake of Corona appeared first on Berlin Food Stories.