Tag Archives: openings

The Scene – 13 New Openings

The first heralds of winter are dancing through Berlin’s streets. Yep, it’s snowing! For some that’s reason enough to heat some mulled wine, for others it’s good reason to pull their blanket to the nose and stay in bed all day. No matter if you’re a winter enthusiast or a couch grouch – no one can resist a cozy restaurant and a hot meal when it’s freezing outside. Here’s the candidates for your next favorite eatery, restaurant or bar of the cold season:

Hermann’s
Herrmann’s team isn’t shy about their goals. With their Hermann’s spaces – a mix of restaurant, film set and even location – they want to want to revolutionize the food industry. How? By connecting those who invent food, those who produce it, those who sell it and those who buy it. The first Hermann Space just opened on Torstraße. It stretches over 300sqm, offers air roasted coffee from London, Polish delicacies and exotic blends like cold peanut soup with melon.

Wagner Bistro
Kreuzberg’s emerging dining drag for those in the know has a new member. Located on Paul-Lincke-Ufer, Wagner Bistro is a promising new gastro-pub. It’s run by the minds behind Industry Standard and makes a point of serving delicious organic food from mostly local ingredients. What’s special about their concept: the menu changes daily, depending on the chef’s inspiration and available ingredients. You can get canteen style lunch, coffee and tea from 10am-4pm. Dinner, cocktails, beers and wine are served from 6pm-2am.

Night Kitchen
Be warned: once you try Night Kitchen with your friends it might soon turn into your Every-Night Kitchen. That’s not only because they’re opened 7 days a week from 5pm until midnight, but because they have this amazing special offer. For 32€ per person you’re served a constant supply of hot and cold delicacies. Here comes the bang: All night long! That translates to delicious tomato and eggplant carpacio, beetroot with caramelized walnuts or brioche with tahini butter. In between there’s apple shots for you and your neighbours. An evening well spent. And again. And again.

Maverick’s
When we hear „Vienna House Andel’s Berlin“, we bow our heads and hail the culinary king of Lichtenberg – michelin-starred restaurant Skykitchen on 12th floor. Since it’s always booked out for months, hotel guests often can’t get a table. Andel’s Hotel’s solution: Maverick’s. Located on ground level, you’ll find California-inspired meals in a warm-hearted surrounding. Expect quality burgers, delicious beef sandwiches, crab cake and more. Maverick’s is a win-win situation for everyone – hotel guests enjoy a great inhouse restaurant and you don’t have to go hungry in Lichtenberg again.

GQ Bar
We all know the big era of print publication is over. So why not turn your magazine into 3D? Possible outcome: a sleek, stylish and sophisticated bar. GQ magazine did just that. Located in Patrick Hellmann’s Schlosshotel, GQ Bar is aiming to become a new hotspot for fashionistas und creative heads. While the excellent cocktails undermine that aim, wen can’t help but ask: Why open it in Grunewald? Berlin’s district of well-heeled pensioners isn’t exactly known to attract Berlin’s cool kids.


St. Bart
St. Bart is basically a mix of culinary finesse and english pub, with tiled walls and happy faces. The good thing is, they don’t ask you to decide. You can skip going to a restaurant before heading to drink, because the food is so good you simply go there for both. Start your night with tasty eats like fried chicken (how do they make it so crispy?), scotch eggs or even delicious nut cake. Then it’s off to please your inner hedonist with tap beer and a laid-back pub atmosphere. Go in, eat, drink, eat, drink, repeat.

Fifty Cocktail Heroes
Hand us a cocktail and we’ll be your hero for the night. But what if you could have fifty heroes and not just one? Well. You can. At Fifty Cocktail Heroes, you’ll find no less than 50 delicious cocktail creations waiting to be explored. The bar joins the fierce competition for coolest bar in Kollwitzkiez with Bryk Bar and Perle Bar among the rivals. Our recommendation: Prenzlauer Boy with beetroot, bourbon and cherry-balsamico-syrup.

Blend Restaurant
Blend restaurant is a mix of flavors, scents and culinary styles of Berlin. Their kitchen is inspired by contemporary food trends as well as traditional Berlin dishes. It’s what they call the „melting pot“ concept – a mix of Italian, German, Turkish and Asian influences. It’s catered to by chef Steffen Sinzinger who learned at „first floor“ restaurant (1 Michelin star) and developed his own style at Charlottenburg’s Le Faubourg.

Funky Fish
If there’s a name that stands for quality food in Berlin, it’s The Duc Ngo. 20 years ago he opened Kuchi – Berlin’s first upscale, modern and stylish sushi bar. He opened a number of restaurants then, the most recent being Funky Fish on Kantstraße. Funky Fish a Spanish fish restaurant with a Japanese twist. It’s based around The Duc Ngos love for seafood à la plancha, easily grilled with olive oil and seasalt.

Klub 808
Located in posh Bikini Haus – West-Berlin’s hotspot for high-end shopping – there’s a new stylish club designed by Laura Rave. She’s better known for designing legendary “Cookies” in Berlin and “Jack Rabbit” in Munich. Klub 808 (pronounced eight-oh-eight) unites dark blue, pink and black elements to create a contrast to Berlin’s dirty techno institutions. Instead you’ll find mostly soul, funk, r’n’b and hip hop.

Tor Bar
The name kind of gives it away: Tor Bar is located on Mitte’s busy Torstraße. The cozy wine and tapas bar was opened by Dieter Meier, also known as Yello’s frontman – a Swiss techno-pop musician pair. Dieter Meier already proved he knows how to attract hungry Berliners with his Ojo de Agua restaurant in Charlottenburg. With Tor Bar, he’s proving he also knows how to attract the more sophisticated Mitte crowd – with good drinks, a snug corner bar and delicious tapas.

Red Carpet … Henrik’s world

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In pursuit of the highest ideal of red carpet partying, our fearless leader Henrik will go to extreme lengths to make sure he knows the hip and happening of Berlin.

  • Berlin is always hot-to-trot but this was one, very naughty evening, even for us! First stop was Playboy night at The Pearl. There was no sign of Hugh Hefner is his dressing gown but there was copious amounts of flesh on display as Playboy Bunnies strode around, as well as burlesque performances. Next, we went to Insomnia, the infamous fetish and sex club at Templehof. Dominique, the owner of the club and Germany’s foremost dominatrix, had invited us to her birthday party! How could we possibly refuse a dominia without getting a severe spanking? We stripped down to the bare minimal and danced the night away, as people all around us were getting down and dirty. Yes, that means exactly what you think it means!

 

  • Berlinale always means parties, premiers and star spotting! Eventually, all the red carpets blur into one dazzling red rug, the size of Berlin! Soho House was the epicenter of everything, as usual. The Oscar nominated ‘American Hustle After Party’ took place in the Soho House basement with stars Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, and Topmodel Toni Garrn in attendance. Soho House also made the most of their fabulous new loft spaces for the party after the premier of Monuments Men, as A-listers George Clooney, John Goodman, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, Matt Damon attended. Rumour has it that George Clooney was seen trying to get into the Olympic Fruits party but we can neither confirm or deny this.
  • Kreuzberg gets trendier and trendier, by the day. The once trashy area is now turning into the place to go five-star bar hopping. Offering some high camp glam is the Prinzipal. Berlinagenten went to the opening party. Like the best bars in Berlin, there is no sign. However once you enter into the long, thin bar, it’s like stepping back into the roaring twenties.  There are two floors, upstairs is a fabulous bar, with a burlesque acts including a girl on a cloud swing high above the patrons heads as the uber cool bar staff, the girls in corsets, the boys in suits made old school cocktails. We loved the make-up table downstairs, so if you’re looking a little rough you canready to take on the night once again.
  • It was the opening that the entire city wanted to get invited to – 25 hours launching their fabulous new hotel – 25 hours Bikini Berlin! They didn’t disappoint with a two-day non-stop party with over 3000 invited guests coming to check out the new hotel. The whole building was made into a party space as the media, hotel and hospitality industry, local celebs and hardcore party people invaded every floor. Every available space was turned into a bar, dance-floor or food station, including an oyster bar, a falafel station, a dessert bar, as well as the 25 Hours signature Neni restaurant, turning out delicious food.There were DJ’s rocking dance floor in the sky sauna, drinks in the corridors and in the bedrooms, where we were encouraged to test out the beds! Most of the action took place in the Monkey Bar, which has in just weeks, cemented itself as the bar to be seen at in Berlin. With performers roaming around the hotel, fire jugglers and fire works, dancing until sunset, the 25 hours Bikini Berlin have set the bar pretty high for the party of the year. For more photos click here