Famously “poor but sexy”, Berlin is BETTER KNOWN FOR ITS COOL than its calm but in a former Danish embassy, TIM MAGEE had the perfect hideaway
That’s an impressive television, I thought. The polished silvery Laurel and Hardy reel that had been the backdrop to Das Stue’s cute cocktail bar the previous evening had been replaced over breakfast by the best HDTV picture I’d ever seen. It was showing a documentary on bossy ostriches. A brace of them were chasing two heavily armed, but chicken, springboks around the paddock. Then, spookily, both birds turned and began rubbernecking at my toast and me. A rub of the eyes and I remembered that this hotel was beside Berlin Zoo and that the ostrich feathers on display here were real, and that the discomfiting noises that flew around my room when I’d opened my window the previous night may not have been from the world’s noisiest and most ridiculous make-out session after all. What sounded like a chimp and a hyena playing bedroom sports was probably just that.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’ve probably read more about this town than any other. I was primed for Berlin to be equal parts hyper-efficient and slightly outrageous, like a preened mittel-European businessman sitting at his desk all expensive specs, pressed jacket, crisp shirt and Windsor knot with just leather Y-fronts and a piercing below.
A fascination for a city instilled by a grandfather with four keen interests – whiskey, soccer, World War II and opera (in that order) – I’ve spent far too much of my life reading about the events that have emanated from this city, from Beevor’s depressing but necessary Berlin: The Downfall 1945 and Funder’s Stasiland, to Phillip Kerr’s brilliant and lovable Marlowe-style detective, Bernie Gunther. What I know may not be worth much but regardless it might just be my Mastermind chosen subject. Which is why it is strange that it has taken me so long to tackle this city properly.
I really wish I’d been alive to visit Berlin during the period referred to as the Golden Twenties. Berlin, during the fragile peace between the wars, was the third biggest city in the world, buzzing with developments in art, architecture, cinema, literature and theatre, its nightlife a perpetual, decadent party.
My real find on this trip wasn’t the city – that was every bit as good as I’d hoped. It was my hotel, Das Stue (above). I could have stayed around trendy Oranienburgerstraße in an alternative hotel run by some Sacha Baron Cohen character or one of the monolithic yawns around Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate but why would you do that when you have a former Danish embassy as your Berlin residence?
Built in the 1930s, Das Stue is on a quiet notch on the embassy belt by Tiergarten, on Berlin’s Upper East Side. Quiet, but Berlin’s public transport system makes that kind of thing irrelevant. It’s a place where you feel every bit the VIP diplomat. Designed within an inch of its life, it doesn’t feel that way. With its perfect lighting, handsome parquet and stone, Das Stue is also home to one of Germany’s best and prettiest restaurants, the starred Cinco (below) by the multi-starred Paco Pérez. Stue means living room in Danish but I felt I was housesitting for the ambassador to heaven. The hotel staff is consistently excellent. Like the best of hospitality professional Berliners, their manner is like a naturally slightly cross person having a really great day.
I ate my way in concentric circles from the Berlin Wall Memorial near Mauerpark flea market down to the Brandenburg Gate. What struck me wasn’t how cool everyone was, or that the matzo soup and reuben sandwiches in the charming Mogg & Melzer, a café in a beautiful old Jewish girls’ school, was better than anything in New York. Or that dinner in Das Lokal, a Berliner Chez Panisse, is the short-term future of Berliner food (the rest of the time I lived off the magnificent Turkish delights in Kreuzberg and Wedding). It was how amazingly quiet this city is. Even during the week it is a city that doesn’t like to raise its voice.
Walking back to Das Stue across Tiergarten was like going back in time, like going back to before the music stopped and everyone put on a uniform. Berlin’s downfalls have usually worn a uniform. Steely blue grey uniforms, brown shirts, grey and beige uniforms of the Cold War to the black and sliver flashes of the SS and Gestapo that came very close to defining us all. Brilliantly, Berlin’s uniforms now are the high-viz yellow of construction workers and whatever students wear. Last year was the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This year, it’s 25 years since Germany’s reunification and Berlin, its crucible, is still nowhere near finished. The pergola-like cranes never leave, they just move about, but in the meantime it’s the Berliners that are as always the fully formed and permanent attraction. I’m looking forward to the Golden Twenties, the next time round.
FOODIE ADDRESS BOOK
Mogg & Meltzer (above): Two DJs with a love of pastrami opened this sweet café in an arts centre, formerly a Jewish girls’ school. You won’t get a more perfect Reuben on tart sourdough toast with crunchy pickles anywhere. Auguststraße 11-13, Mitte;
www.moggandmelzer.com
Jolesch: One of Kreuzberg locals’ favourites, a dark cosy dining room with wood-burning stove serving substantial Wiener schnitzel, borscht and other classics. Muskauer Straße 1, Kreuzberg; www.jolesch.de.
Das Lokal: Friendly little corner place with impeccable locavore connections serving offal and game and simple, seasonal, sometimes whimsical dishes. Linienstraße 160, Mitte; www.lokal-berlin.blogspot.com
Tim Magee @ManAndASuitcase
This article appeared in a previous issue, for more features like this, don’t miss our September issue, out Saturday September 3.
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