And where to go when you can’t get in.
CAN’T GET INTO THIS ONE?
“My favorite place to eat,” says Hilda Hoy, editor at e-mail magazine Sugarhigh. The farm-to-table American spot, which looks “like a cross between a farmhouse and the hold of a ship,” opened last summer after a yearlong stint as an apartment supper club.
Like Reinstoff, it is located in the back of an anonymous building. “They give you a whole smorgasbord of splendid appetizers,” says Hoy. “It’s really popular, but so off-the-beaten-path that it still feels like a secret.” Plus it’s cheap: Four courses, with wine, runs €39.
You are: A beer-obsessed middle-aged accountant from Moabit who makes weekly trips to the Brewbaker brewpub (Arminiusstrasse 2-4).
You’re drinking: Brewbaker Imperial Stout, a gloriously rich, dry, and dark brew from Berlin’s most innovative brewer.
You are: A young Mitte lawyer hanging out with fellow Schwaben (yuppies from prosperous West Germany) at the new Augustiner am Gendarmenmarkt (Charlottenstrasse 55).
You’re drinking: Augustiner Edelstoff, a malty, toast-dry lager from the best of the big Munich breweries.
You are: A Charlottenburg housewife quaffing your lunch at the civilized garden restaurant Le Piaf (Schlossstrasse 60).
You’re drinking: Berliner Kindl Weisse, a tart local wheat beer, which most people drink with red raspberry or green woodruff syrup.
You’re drinking: Schultheiss Pilsner, a light golden pilsner brewed in a local mega-keggery.