Berlin Reified

Saplings at Schöneberg station

Between the railway tracks and the concrete embankment are barely three inches of spaces. In that space, this row of saplings, alert against the unprepossessing wall.

Sunday snaps

Du Bonheur*, Arkonaplatz playground, Bondi, Nordbahnhof playground: summer in Berlin.

PS: I think I'll be in Hamburg later this week: if there's anywhere I should go, do share.

*the Kouign Amann!

On our way to Peacock Island (Nikolskoe Church/Blockhaus Nikolskoe)

We waited for a sunny day, and set out early.

Bus 218 ends at the ferry to Pfaueninsel. I remembered a restaurant in the hills above the water. The uphill path past the two Biergärten leads through the woods, with flashes of blue between the trees.

Dinner at Jung Grün & Blau

A birthday highlight? Being taken out for dinner at Jung, Grün & Blau.

---

There was fabulous music, a vast expanse of sky, and a procession of delicate morsels in the Japanese style, mixing Brodowin milk and miso, dashi and Brandenburg's finest goat's meat and cheese. 

On the journey home, I played through the little dishes as one would a piece of music. The first cherries of the year in a snow of goat's cheese and the bitter-toned lemon ice stayed with me particularly, as did the waft of juniper smoke.

The olive oil was foraged from abandoned groves in Spain.

The trio of under-21s running the show are full of a delightful energy, and I wish them all the best. 

Jung Grün & Blau, near the Turmstraße station, Berlin-Moabit
Address, bookings and contact through the website.

Chevrons & polka dots (& a fabulous craft shop)

On rainy days, a quick trip to Hobbyshop Rüther will keep you fuelled for hours.

Hobbyshop Rüther, Goltzstrasse 37, Berlin-Schöneberg (map), other branches listed here. A craft and artist supply emporium in business since 1969.

Revisiting: Sarah Wiener at the Hamburger Bahnhof

Metallic skies brightened by a slice of lemon tart. The little light bounces around the high-ceilinged rooms. A German mother neatly slices up a Wiener Schnitzel, to be divided between her son and daughter. A Spanish couple chases their toddler, laughing, around the sofas. 

Consulting my archives, I see I last ate at Sarah Wiener's restaurant in the Hamburger Bahnhof on a similarly gray day. (And speaking of archives, if you'll permit me the segue, doesn't this Tuesday's opening of Living Archive – Archive Work as a Contemporary Artistic and Curatorial Practice, sound like one to mark down in your diaries?) 

We were fresh from Beuys' slabs of lard, but that wasn't enough to put us off our cakes, which were, I can now confirm, what Wiener gets right: homemade in their essence, and with enough polish (that gloss on the tart, the moist heft of the Sachertorte) to feel like an occasion. 

Sarah Wiener in Hamburger Bahnhof, Invalidenstr. 50, Berlin-Mitte (map)
Complicated hours best consulted on the website.
Tel.  (030) 7071 3650