Field Trips: Berlin Bar Trends

courtesy Fabelei

8 bars defining the Berlin cocktail bar scene right now

Berlin is popularly known as a forward-thinking and convention busting city. In the bar world however, that wasn’t always the case. Common threads linked the city’s hottest bars—dark, speakeasy style, and smoky. Then there’s the late closing times, up to 6am. No doubt about it: the German capital has put my former town London, and it's 11.30pm ringing of last orders, to definite shame.

Things are changing these days, with new, exciting formats arriving thick and fast, though the all night vibe persists.

Fabelei Bar

Kyffhäuserstraße 21, 10781 Berlin

Fabelei Bar is an immediate riposte to darker-than-thou cliché. Over in a part of Schöneberg—an area known for its relaxed, albeit somewhat old school, bohemian vibes—Anastasia Schoeck and Filip Bochenski have opened up a bar focusing on the early evening crowd.

Accordingly, they’ve brightened things up. Wooden frames from the establishment of the building add up to a convivial café vibe more reminiscent of Italy, rather than Germany’s dark, gritty capital. The first bar in the neighborhood to offer bar food, it offers an array of alcohol-free drinks and is non smoking to boot (both owners believe that smoke takes away from the taste of the drinks). Our current menu focuses on stories related to us,” they explain in an email. “We wanted to invite the guest to get to know us through our stories, for instance to come on journey to Oslo, sip a particular hot Berlin Summer.” They say one can even get a sense of the character of bar cat Elisabeth through a drink selection. “We offer a seasonal aperitif menu where the guest might find a lighter, early-evening-drink.”

courtesy Mr. Susan

Mr. Susan

Krausnickstraße 1, 10115 Berlin

On that note, Berlin’s food scene is on the certifiable up—and that includes a whole host of great restaurant bars. Mr. Susan is another bar pushing something different, in this case a cheekier, primary colored aesthetic. Run by the delightful Susan Choi, it used to be an acclaimed popup and now is setting hearts aflutter in the city’s Prenzlauer Berg district. A row of blue seats line up against a pink terrazzo bar, with a drinks menu that also trends towards the bold. Case in point: the Kimchi Popsicle Micheladas, which comes served with a beer. Add that to a Nacho Cheese Doritos distillate and drinks made with fir, sesame, and even mushroom reductions.

Other Restaurant Bars

Restaurant bars of a libationary ilk are now ten a penny across the city—and not just in trendy Mitte or City West. There’s Golvet, an award-winning restaurant bar with an impressive panorama over the city’s Potsdamer Platz. Michelin cuisine of a decisively modern, but back to basics style is the name of the game here. There’s Coda, a dessert bar offering a six course tasting menu with matching cocktails in the fast-gentrifying Neukölln district. Another fine dining place well worth trying is Tulus Lotrek, a relaxed, locally focused restaurant whose drinks program is led by bartender Felix Fuchs.

Jack Of All Trades Cocktail at Truffle Pig

Velvet

Ganghoferstraße 1, 12043 Berlin

A conscious, sustainable vibe has also taken root in the city’s drinking dens. Take Velvet, a bar a bit older than the likes of Mr. Susan or Fabelei, but also pushing boundaries. Run by Filip Kaszubski, Ruben Neideck and Robert Havemann, Velvet bases each drink on a single ingredient, one sourced locally and modified on site. The bar is only open from Wednesday to Sunday, giving the team the start of the week to carry out the aforementioned sourcing and modification. Ingredients are locally-sourced, such as woodruff—a sweet scented herb used to flavor things from Berliner Weisse to white wine, ice cream and sausages—from the city’s urban Prinzessinnengarten. They say that on Tuesdays they get experimental, by taking a look at everything they have collected, harvested and cultivated before processing it for the menu.

Note: the menu changes weekly, with a rotating array of ingredients featured throughout.

Truffle Pig

Reuterstraße 47, 12047 Berlin

He’s one of the biggest faces in the scene. One of Velvet and Mr. Susan’s former protegées, Damien Guichard recently opened Truffle Pig in the back of Neukölln’s Kauz and Kiebitz bar. His new venture is a small secret bar—the door is carefully hidden within the front bar—specializing in cocktails that marry classicism and innovation.

“I feel like sustainability and therefore seasonal menus with local ingredients are at the forefront,” he says about Berlin’s current direction. “The way ingredients are processed as well. More and more scientific and technical methods are a focus.” But he sounds an alarm before bartenders delve too far down the rabbit hole. “Approachability is the most important part of it,” he continues. “Of course I like to explore different techniques in order to optimize flavor and texture, but I feel like that hard work shouldn’t be reflected on paper. Otherwise, who do you write the menu for? The guests or yourself?”

The above sentiment is a key point—amongst the bells and flourishes, Berlin’s bars are not losing track of what customers come for in the first place. Don’t mistake Berlin’s sudden interest in trends for missing the bottom line. The German capital still knows how to throw a godforsaken good time.