Germany: Vegetarian Food

[This section is in the earliest stages of development: 20 July 2002]

Germany in General

There is at least one vegetarian restaurant or partially vegetarian restaurant in most of the German cities I have visited over the past few years (Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim). However, despite its high profile political Green movement, and public concern for 'organic' food, Germany is not blessed with a wealth of vegetarian restaurants. Neither have I noticed much German supermarket food being labelled as suitable for vegetarians. However, health food shops, and shops selling organic food, are, in my experience, not hard to locate, making vegetarian picnic food relatively easy to obtain. Open markets, such as are found all over Italy, are not apparently where German people buy fruit and vegetables.

The bad news is that much traditional German food is heavily based on slaughtered animals and on animal products. As in Britain, many people in Germany appear to find it strange to want to avoid eating dead animals. Unlike in Italy (where olive oil is used), the fat in which German food is cooked may well originate from rendered animal flesh. This latter point is significant, for in Berlin I experienced difficulty in a non-vegetarian restaurant because the chef, although willing to prepare something meat-free, could not guarantee that the oil used for frying was suitable for vegetarians.

In many hotels, a buffet breakfast consists of slices of processed dairy cheese, slices of pig, slices of squashed animals, and chickens' eggs in one form or another. There might also be breakfast cereal served with cow's milk, dairy yoghurt and kwark.

Berlin

To date, I have eaten in only one vegetarian restaurant in Berlin, in one restaurant that serves vegetarian food, and in one restaurant that can no longer be described as vegetarian-friendly. There are plenty of other places for me to eat in Berlin, and I very much look forward to eating in them.

Berlin is a big city, and Greater Berlin is huge. Although Berlin public transport is wonderfully efficient, travelling even from one side of the city centre (e.g. Charlottenburg) to another (e.g. Kreuzberg) can take quite a while. Choosing a place to eat, therefore, depends in part on where you are when you want to eat. Also, being a big city, there are places in Berlin (as in London, Paris and Rome) where the less-confident person may be unwilling or unwise to venture (e.g.Schöneberg on a Saturday afternoon).

The popular eating places can get very busy, and unless you speak German, making a telephone reservation can feel quite daunting. Eating early is one way to avoid having to telephone for a reservation.

Brick-bats: some details on the (UK) Vegetarian Society website are seriously out of date. Restaurant/Cafe Tiago is no longer at Knesebeckstrasse 15 (Charlottenburg): maybe it has moved, maybe it died, but it ain't where the Vegetarian Society says it is. Further, Voltair, at Stuttgarter Platz (Charlottenburg) cannot be described as vegetarian-friendly, never mind "vegan-friendly".

Garlands: good sources of information:

 Books: The Rough Guide to Berlin, Time Out Guide to Berlin

 Magazine: Zitty (a Berlin weekly 'What's On', cover price: DM4)

 On-line: Time Out; Zitty On-line; Vegan.de.

Hakuin

Martin-Luther Strasse 1, 1A, 10777 Berlin
tel: (030) 218-2027
fax: (030) 213-9862
www.restaurant-hakuin.de
[ground floor of a huge office block at a major road intersection; U-Bahn: Wittemberg Platz];
Mondays: closed
Tuesdays-Saturdays: 17:00-23:30
Sundays & holidays: 12:00-23:30

 vegetarian (but may be macro-biotic because Buddhist-run); on the expensive side (for vegetarian food), but the quality of the food justifies the price - what I ate ('Hakuin im Orient') was excellent; limited vegan, but good vegan awareness by staff; ambience tastefully peaceful - the main room has an in-floor pond, with cascade and swimming carp; some English spoken, and menu available in English; excellent wheelchair access, but some tables are up a step, as are the toilets; popular with professional clientele; highly recommended

Oren

Orianienburger Strasse 28, 10117 Berlin
tel: (030) 282-8228
fax: (030) 2859-9313
[next door to Neue Synagogue; U-Bahn: Oranienburger Tor; S-Bahn: Hackescher Markt]
Daily: 10:00-01:00
(appears not to close for Sabbath)

 Jewish (presumably Kosher)/ Middle-Eastern restaurant, serving vegetarian food; limited vegan, but good vegan awareness by staff; tables: courtyard and ground floor, with about 80 seats; disabled access reasonable/good, and level access to toilets; moderately priced, and good value; good food, but not cordon bleu; recommended.

 

Three other restaurants deserve mention here because they appear in many of the lists of Berlin vegetarian restaurants.

Abendmahl

Muskauer Strasse 9, Kreuzberg, Berlin
tel: (030) 612-5170
Mondays & holidays: closed
Tuesdays-Sundays: 11:30-23:00

 vegetarian, moderately-priced (Zitty On-line)

Samadhi

Goetherstrasse 6, Charlottenburg, 10623 Berlin
tel: (030) 313-1067
[U-Bahn: Ernst-Reuter Platz]
Mondays-Fridays: 12:00-15:00 & 18:00-23:00
Saturdays: 18:00-23:00

 Far-Eastern (vegetarian?) restaurant, serving vegetarian food; small and subdued.

Thürnagel

Gneisenaustrasse 53 (Time Out on-line)
Gneisenaustrasse 57 (Vegetarian Society; European Vegetarian Guide)
Schlossstrasse101 (in der Galleria) (Zitty On-line)
Kreuzberg, 10961 Berlin
tel: (030) 691-4800
[U-Bahn: U7, Südstern (Time Out on-line)
U-Bahn: Steglitz (Zitty On-line)
Daily: 18:30-24:00 (European Vegetarian Guide)
Daily: 18:00-24:00 (Time Out on-line)
Daily: 10:00-24:00 (Zitty On-line)

 Partially-vegetarian restaurant; inexpensive (Veg Soc) pricey (Time Out on-line), and frequented by young people (Veg Soc) trendy people (Time Out on-line); 70 seats (European Vegetarian Guide).

 

Despite the Rough Guide to Berlin waxing lyrical about the qualities of Berlin beer, what I drank in Berlin was only passably better than the insipid Schwabian beer I drank in and around Stuttgart. It is my prejudice that the brewers of Brabant are the most competent at brewing a significant range of distinctive and robust beers, and that independent British brewers (especially in some of the micro-breweries) are catching up fast. I guess that my palate is not fine-tuned to discern the subtle qualities of Berlin beer. I do, however, enjoy an occasional wheat beer.

A speciality of Berlin is a green-coloured, sweet, woodruff flavouring poured into a weiss bier (wheat beer): "Ein Berliner Weissbier, mit grun, bitte." (Woodruff is a pert, short-stemmed plant of the bedstraw family with tiny white flowers. It grows in woods in Britain and Germany, and has been used traditionally, in the form of an infusion, as a mild relaxant for the relief of (tension) headaches. I have long made sweet syrups from it, as it smells of new-mown hay (resulting from the volatile chemical 'coumarin'), an idea inspired by the woodruff sherbet described by Gunter Grass in Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum). It was a joy to me to discover that Berliners have been making such a syrup for centuries. [Question for John Fowles: why did you call the French Lieutenant's Woman 'Miss Woodruff'?])

Mannheim

Heller's Vollwert-Restaurant

N7, 13-15, Mannheim
tel: 0621-153525/26;
[not far from the Wasserturm]
Mondays-Fridays: 11:00-20:00
Saturdays: 11:00-15:30
Sundays: closed

 vegetarian wholefood restaurant; selection of 50 salads etc.; easy to choose vegan food, as everything is labelled with full list of ingredients; average prices; good disabled access for eating inside or in the courtyard (under awning); recommended.

 

Stuttgart, Tübingen, Hamburg & Lübeck

To come. Please be patient.

 p.g.h@btinternet.com