The Oderquelle

I tend to fixate: The Grey Album, not hiphop, The Waves, not Woolf, and the Oderquelle, the Oderquelle. I first visited the restaurant in 2001 when a friend was scouting restaurants for her wedding reception. We were immediately charmed by the mixed clientele (Prenzlauerberg hipsters sharing a long table with four old men playing cards) and the stylish but utterly unselfconscious interior.

Margaret did end up having her reception at the Oderquelle, and I fondly remember savouring the venison steak in their snug pale-teal side room. In the years that followed, I've been there with every friend who's ever come to visit, my now-husband and I had our first date there, on special request they put my two favourite dishes on the menu when I celebrated turning 27, and even brought us plates for the brownies David had made.

Why I'm so obsessed? First, the menu changes daily, and the moment a new delicacy cycles into season they spotlight it, but don't just go through the motions. Germans are obsessed with asparagus, for example, and in the spring you see signs everywhere proclaiming Spargelzeit (Time for asparagus!). Most of the Spargel menus are the same dreary march through asparagus with hollandaise, asparagus with hollandaise wrapped in a handkerchief of ham, etc. Oderquelle's take, on the other hand, would be roasted asparagus stalks, blistered with mahogany patches and briefly dunked in a butter-lemon allusion to hollandaise.

Second, vegetarians are only very seldom fobbed off with a could-have-made-it-myself pasta variant; crisp delicate vegetable strudel or olive-studded mashed potatoes gratineed with Appenzeller are more the order of the day. Carnivores are just as well served with a range of German and new European options: crisp pork loin in a cumin sauce with glazed red radish and potato dumplings, for instance, or rumpsteak with a marrow crust and a side order of potato rösti topped with Italian ham.

The wine list is reliable and unshowy, and I, ever the temperate drinker, am grateful for the chance to sample good German, French, Italian or Spanish wine for 2 or 3 Eur for a 0,1 l  (3.5 oz) glass. The service is unpretentious but efficient, and they inevitably have great music playing. (And finally – strictly for me – it's just the right distance from our flat: a brisk twenty-minute walk through the park, the perfect length for a post-prandial stroll to digest and reflect on how exactly they made the parsnip lace garnish so crisp.)

Oderquelle, Oderbergerstraße 24, 10435 Berlin (map)
(030) 4400 8080 (Reservations are a good idea, but they can usually fit people in at the bar.)

Comments

[David]

I'd just like to add that the Flammkuchen are very nice if you don't fancy any of the daily specials, or if you just feel like a snack.