When I briefly lived in Berlin as a newlywed, it was a divided city, west and east, separated by a wall, barbed wire, manned machine-gun watchtowers, and wide, barren swaths of no-man’s land. The grand avenue of Unter den Linden, the monumental Brandenberg Gate, and Museum Island, now a UNESCO site, were all behind the wall in East Berlin and off-limits.
I stayed close to my Wilmersdorf neighborhood in West Berlin, venturing by bus or U-banh to the KaDeWe department store on Kurfurstendamn, the west’s big shopping street, and its nearby Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, where the partially destroyed church stands as a reminder of the destructive bombing of the city during WW II. I shopped at my neighborhood bakeries and pastry shops. There was a local butcher I went to, and small grocery stores.
Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Napa Valley Register.
Almost every corner had some sort of a pub, with local beer and sausages. My favorite, though, was the Currywurst mit Brochen from the upper floor at Ka-de-We, a delicious concoction of sausage slices topped with curry-flavored ketchup served with a bun alongside. Sometimes I’d also get the Kartofflen Salat, a creamy mound of soft chunks of potatoes, mayonnaise and pickles.
People are also reading…
I’ve cherished my memories of my brief time in Berlin, and I’d always wanted to go back, but it wasn’t until a few months ago that I made the trip. My grown daughter was going with me. We’d stay in historic hotels, I’d take her to the places I remembered in the west, and together we’d discover today’s Berlin, the one that once was behind the wall.
Part I Arrival and Memory Lane
Dusk was falling as our airport cab wove through the narrow streets of Kreutzberg, a formerly working-class district, bordered on three sides by the infamous wall. The neighborhood was also home to many of Berlin’s immigrants and today it’s famous for its edgy clubs and arts while slowly gentrifying.
We were staying at the Hotel Orania, housed in an Art Deco building, registered in 1995 as a historic monument. Built in 1913, it opened as the Oranienpalast Cabaret, a popular café and concert venue. For the next hundred years it experienced many owners and business iterations, from clothing store to food shop until, in 2017, after several years of renovation, it came back to life as the Hotel Orania, also with a stage for performances. As our cab pulled up to the entrance, soft lights glowed from the hotel lobby and the bar’s tall windows, beckoning us inside.
The next day, dawn broke across the leafy park by the hotel as we sat in our room, the light pouring in through the panoramic window, sipping our Nespresso from the in-room machine, contemplating the vista before heading downstairs to a traditional German breakfast of bread, meats, cheeses and fruits in the hotel restaurant room. From there, we had a good view of the comings and goings on the street readying ourselves to join them on our first outing, a revisit to KaDeWe.
My daughter and I stood in front of the 19th-century department store, allowing time for my memories, before heading straight up to the food floor, the sixth. Of course, much had changed. Now there are separate restaurants and wine bars interspersed with the butcher shops and fish mongers of old. Gone were the Persian lamb coats and tailored suits favored by Berlin women of yore, replaced by puffer coats and designer jeans, but everything still felt familiar.
We opted for a small restaurant separated from the food aisles by a velvet rope, where, perched on stools, we ordered steak tartare and a small bowl of bouillabaisse, along with a glass of Sancerre. The steak tartare came topped with a velvet-smooth purée of celery root, and sautéed porcini mushrooms decorated the plate. The bouillabaisse would have given any place on the French Rivera competition. It wasn’t exactly the KaDeWe of my memory, but a modern version of it, and every bit as special.
A whole duck dinner
Back at our hotel that evening a treat awaited us. The Orania’s restaurant has quickly become famous for its XBerg Duck Dinners, a four-course extravaganza that draws people from all over Berlin. We were lucky not only to get a reservation but a seat close enough to the open kitchen to watch the crispy parade of whole ducks coming from the high ovens to the waiting tables, where adept servers carved the fowls, first removing the skin in wide, mahogany ribbons.
These, it was explained to us when it was our turn, were to be tucked into the thin pancakes and garnished with the various accouterments that appeared on the table. We’d already had the first course of Duck Dashi with Duck Dumplings, and an aperitif of Rosé Rye Spritz, so we were well prepared for this second course, our appetites fully awakened. The skin was perfection. We wrapped it in the pancakes and filled them with the condiments before adding the hoisin sauce.
I was sorry when the last bit of skin was gone, but the main course, perfectly rare Duck Breast with Marinated and Grilled Eggplant and Bok Choy, came soon behind, followed by a delicate dish of rice to finish. We barely had room for dessert, but we couldn’t resist the Banana, Whiskey and Coffee concoction.
The heart of Berlin
The Adlon Kempinski Hotel stands on the crossroads of Berlin’s history where, from its very beginning, it drew the rich, famous and powerful of Europe. It was officially opened in 1907 by Kaiser Wilhelm II, who loved it so much he kept a private apartment there to be at his disposal. Politicians, royalty, industrialists, and movies stars could regularly be found there.
During Hitler’s rule, it was the place for members of the Nazi party and military to go to see and be seen. Although it survived the war, in mid-1945 it was partially destroyed by fire. Nevertheless, it continued on as a luxury hotel and meeting place during the Cold War until the 1970s when it was destroyed by the socialist government. Rebuilt, in the exact same location and re-opened in 1997, the Adlon immediately took its place once again among the great hotels of Europe.
I could not have been more thrilled to stay at this historic hotel. Our room, a suite, overlooked the Brandenburg Gate, the Pariser Platz and the broad avenue of Unter den Linden. We arrived the same day as Queen Margarethe of Denmark, and we were treated to the extra spectacle of cavalcades of motorcycles and flag-bearing limousines of the queen’s entourage lining up in front of the entrance, all of which was in keeping with the stature of the hotel.
The seats in the Adlon’s large lobby lounge were occupied by serious-looking men and women in sober suits on the day we arrived, and that evening, we saw them dressed in gowns and tuxedos, waiting for their transportation to glamorous parties. Or so we learned from the morning papers as we breakfasted on caviar and scrambled eggs, an array of bread and cheeses selected from what is perhaps the best and largest, the most diverse, morning spread in the city, and a good way to begin a day of sightseeing.
We began right around the corner from the hotel with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a vast space of upright black granite slabs, row upon row, almost maze-like. Though many people were weaving in and out, the silence was palpable. Emerging from the monument and walking across the road and into the depths of the Tiergarten park provided some respite from the chilling experience.
Further exploration near the Adlon took us to the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building, which was roped off to visitors that day, and a wander around the neighborhood before returning to Pariser Platz for currywurst. A Curry Wolfe kiosk, located on the Platz, promised not only the sausage and sauce made famous by Berliner Herta Heuwer in 1949, but a choice of Moët Champagne, individual or full-size bottle, hot wine, or beer. After all, it was time for lunch and time to revisit another memory of food.
There were a few outdoor tables with benches, and a cluster of standing tables. Our host insisted we have the Champagne, currywurst two ways, one with the skin, one without. They came in a white paper boat with French fries and loads of wurst and sauce. It was every bit as good as I remembered from the long-ago days at KaDeWe, and the Champagne was a great pairing, I thought, as we stood bundled up against the November cold, standing on historic Unter den Linden with Brandenberg Gate at our back.
Unter den Linden
Unter den Linden, shorn of its famous linden trees by Adolf Hitler to make way for Nazi flags, originated in the 16th century as a bridal path from the palace at one end to the royal hunting grounds, now the Tiergarten, at the other. By the late 1880s it had evolved into one of the most elegant boulevards in Europe, lined with a thousand linden trees and sought-after mansions, the Champs Elysée of Berlin.
Even though Hitler replanted the trees he had first ordered cut down, the saplings didn’t survive WW II and its immediate aftermath. Replanted again in the 1950s, the avenue is once-again tree-lined, and many of the mansions have been restored to house embassies.
As my daughter and I walked along Unter den Linden, first for a day-long visit to the museums — there are five of them on museum island — and another time to visit the brand new Humboldt Forum, which is built upon the site of old palace grounds across the avenue from the museums, it was easy to understand what the loss of this historic heart of Berlin meant to those in the western section of the divided city and to divided Germany as a whole.
Museum Island and the Humboldt Forum
The museums, praised as the cultural heart of Berlin fell into decline first with their shutting to the general public in 1939. During the war years, most of the treasures were carted off to storage and the buildings were partially destroyed by Allied bombing and then later by neglect.
In 2009, with the opening of the restored Neues Museum, which houses the Egyptian collection, visitors were once again welcomed to all the museums, and it was the Neues we visited first. Like so many others, we went directly to Level 2 to the large, beautiful room to see the magnificent 3,300-year-old head of Queen Nefertiti, and then to wander among the vast collection of artifacts from ancient Egypt.
The Neues is next door to the Pergamon Museum, our next stop, which boasts a huge collection of Eastern Mediterranean archeological finds, several of which are of stunning monumental scale and take up entire, high-ceilinged rooms. Perhaps the most impressive of all is the famous Ishtar Gate of Babylon, in shimmering hues of blues and greens. More than 45 feet tall and 100 feet wide, it dwarfs the visitor, not only with its size but its beauty. In another room the visitor literally enters the Roman market square of Miletus, framed by a two-story high gate, surrounded by thick, towering stone pillars. The museum also houses an extensive collection of Islamic Art, but we had run out of time, so missed visiting it. If you can only visit one museum, make it the Pergamon.
Humboldt Forum, which we visited another day, opened in 2021, and combines the collections of the former Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art. The site and the building represent Berlin’s past and present. Formerly the site of the Berlin Palace, which was built in 1443 as a residence for Prussian kings and was later home to German Emperors, the palace itself was built on the ruins of a 12th-century village and 13th-century Dominican monastery.
The palace was badly damaged in WW II and, in 1950 it was demolished by the East German government. In its place, in modern block style, the Palace of the Republic, was built. Some 50-plus years later, under the unified German government, this building too was demolished and the Humboldt Forum, a new cultural center, which took nearly two decades to build, took its place.
In the basement, which is fascinating to visit, are the ruins of the first settlement in Berlin, dating back 800 years, plus ruins of the original palace kitchens. The Forum is intensely modern, with a rooftop terrace and a restaurant that provides a 360-degree view of the city. The Forum’s façade, however, is a replica of the old Berlin Palace. Many of the exhibits contain artifacts that came to Germany during its period of colonial empire-building in the late 1800s and early 1900s, mostly from Africa and Asia, which has caused some controversy for the new museum.
A final dinner at the Adlon
It was fitting to conclude our brief five-day stay in Berlin with dinner at the Adlon’s two-star Michelin restaurant, the Lorenz Adlon Esszimmer, whose oval dining room overlooks Unter den Linden and Brandenburg Gate. A fire was burning in the dining room’s fireplace, which made the candle-lit space even more gracious and old-world. As you would expect, fresh floral displays were placed discreetly around the room, the tables were draped in white linen and topped with waiting wine glasses. We opted for the six-course tasting menu, along with wine pairings.
With the first sip of our first glass, Bonnet-Ponson extra-brut rosé Champagne, accompanied by six bite-size amuse, each with complex flavors and varied textures, we knew we were in for an extraordinary evening.
Salmon from the Faroe Islands came first, followed by Langoustines in Crustacean Broth. Next was a Saddle of Tuna, then a dish of Pork Belly with tiny dim sum, and the main course featured one of my favorite fowls, Guinea Hen.
Each wine pairing enhanced the flavors of the dish it accompanied, as did the final pairing, a glass of 1989 Domaine du Mas Blanc Banyuls to go with the Shiso Plum ice cream – and the myriad tiny après desserts that came delicately poised and presented on a twisted grapevine. The evening was a striking and memorable end to my Berlin visit and trip through memories, in fact creating more, these now shared with my daughter.
Close
Brandenburg Gate
Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of Berlin and of German division during the Cold War, now represents national peace and unity.
Georgeanne
The author Georgeanne Brennan near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, where the partially destroyed church stands as a reminder of the destructive bombing of the city during World War II.
Adlon hotel
The historic Adlon hotel in Berlin was destroyed by the socialst government and then rebuilt and reopened in 1997. In the distance is the Brandenburg Gate.
X-Berg Duck
The Hotel Orania’s restaurant has become famous for its XBerg Duck Dinners, a four-course extravaganza that draws people from all over Berlin.
Currywurst
A currywurst stand in Berlin.
Tiergarten
The Tiergarten in Berlin, an inner city park that is home to the city’s zoo.
Steak Tartare at Ka-de-we
Steak Tartare at Ka-de-we department store on Kurfurstendamn.
Adlon 2
The menu at Berlin’s historic Adlon hotel.
Brandenburg Gate 2
Sunset at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, German.
Brandenburg Gate
Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of Berlin and of German division during the Cold War, now represents national peace and unity.
Georgeanne
The author Georgeanne Brennan near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, where the partially destroyed church stands as a reminder of the destructive bombing of the city during World War II.
Adlon hotel
The historic Adlon hotel in Berlin was destroyed by the socialst government and then rebuilt and reopened in 1997. In the distance is the Brandenburg Gate.
X-Berg Duck
The Hotel Orania’s restaurant has become famous for its XBerg Duck Dinners, a four-course extravaganza that draws people from all over Berlin.
Currywurst
A currywurst stand in Berlin.
Tiergarten
The Tiergarten in Berlin, an inner city park that is home to the city’s zoo.
Steak Tartare at Ka-de-we
Steak Tartare at Ka-de-we department store on Kurfurstendamn.
Adlon 2
The menu at Berlin’s historic Adlon hotel.
Brandenburg Gate 2
Sunset at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, German.
Start exploring magnificent places with our weekly travel newsletter.
