The Joy of Being Posh

Le Cochon Bourgeois - Kreuzberg

My favourite pastime in my first year in Berlin was to correct people who told me I was living in Germany. “I’m in Berlin, you fuckers. Berlin is NOT Germany.” Or so goes the line? Alas, I’ve been disillusioned since. I am now a proud protagonist of the “Berlin is very much in Germany” theory. No need to repeat all of that. I’ve ranted about Germans in so many posts that it would be getting tedious if I started this one doing the same. So no. What I did want to say about Berlin and Germany was (hopefully) a bit more intriguing than just that. It’s the age discrepancy between Berlin and the rest of Germany.

Do you see what I’m trying to say? Probably not. So here goes nothing. Think of the most ubiquitously German attractions: Neuschwanstein, half-timbered houses, the Black Forest. They all conjure up an image of beauty and greatness of yore. But then take a look at Berlin, the capital, the icing on that Black Forest Gateau,  and it seems to reject all of the aforementioned romantic paraphernalia. Not only is Berlin younger than your average German town, but the 20^th century left such a mark of the city’s landscape, somehow marginalising the influence of all that had preceded it.

There is no need to retell the story of Berlin’s topsy-turvy history during the 20^th century. You Know Who between 1933 and 1945 and that wall between 1961 and 1989 are reasons enough for any place to change its appearance and identity. But what it also means – especially in comparison to other places in Germany – is that the 20^th century also made it impossible for Berlin to have old institutions.

At the end of the day, the effects of the war are still visible just about everywhere in Germany. But still, in most German towns one will still stumble upon old culinary institutions that have been around since the time eccentric kings still ruled the land. Lübeck’s 1960’s concrete market square has a Niederegger café and Munich’s got its Hofbräuhaus, both founded a very long time ago. Berlin, however, is a bit weaker on institutions. Things that have been around for a while. There are exceptions, of course, like the old and endearing  Baumkuchenlieferant (the official Baumkuchen supplier for the Kaiser) in Moabit, but they are few and far between. Berlin is often about the modern and the edgy.

Which is why I sometimes enjoy walking around West Berlin, finding things that have been around for longer than just a few years. Restaurants that assert themselves as small, local institutions (needless to say, due to a couple of historical interferences, it remains largely a West-Berlin phenomenon). Fichtestraße in Kreuzberg is the proud home of a few such venues, established places that have been around for a long time. Somehow the entire street manages to exude something dignified and appealing, which means most restaurants are priced accordingly.

One of these places is Le Cochon Bourgeois – a poshly French restaurant. The space inside looks like a flat converted into a public house and then decorated to produce an image of austere luxury. A bit like a pearl necklace dangling from a rich lady’s neck, Le Cochon Bourgeois does not go past the bare essentials, but it does it extremely well. No posters on the walls, no fancy decorations hanging from the ceiling, no loud music to distract you from a bad date (if this is what you happened to need). But after a second thought: why would anyone in their right mind bring a bad date to Le Cochon Bourgeois?

Boudin

Mousse

First of all, it’s pricey. Secondly, it’s too good for a bad date. We started with the two most different starters one could think of: a boudin (the French equivalent of black pudding, served with celery puree and apples for 8.00 €) and a goat cheese mousse (served with various green stuff for 7.00 €). They were both splendid. The boudin was perfect: the right consistency creating a refined mass where no one on earth would be able to imagine this was just a blood sausage. The sauce, the puree and the apples all seemed to dance along to the same music. It was like a whole party – but just in your mouth. The mousse was perfect as well, with just the right smoothness combined with a fantastically rich taste.

We continued to the mains, which were even pricier. We opted for the confit the canard (duck confit, maybe my favourite dish in the world, 26.00€) and veal medallions (fairly expensive, but what the heck: 32.50 €). I wish I could rant about the fact posh restaurants are just not worth the money and all that jazz. But I really can’t. It was all fairly perfect. The confit was brilliant, with the taste of something that had been marinated in fat for ages, just without the actual fat dripping from it. The medallions were tender and quite incredible, with a perfect match between the meat quality, degree of cooking, consistency, and yes, the sauce. All good. 

Medallions

Wonderfully weird

We were not sure whether we wanted to have dessert, but after one stern look from the wonderfully chatty waitress we decided it really was now or never. We opted for the boringly solid option (crème brulée, 7.00 €) and for the strangely unappealing one, which was nonetheless highly recommended by that same waitress (red cabbage in passion fruit marinade, nougat mousse and white coffee mousse for 13.50 €). The crème brulée was solidly wonderful: Just right, perfectly by the book. Yet the real surprise was that other thing. “The world belongs to the brave” was what the waitress said once we’d ordered the cabbage thingy. And she was right. Think of something that tastes of passion fruit with a cabbagy texture with two fantastic mousses on top and a piece of caramelised joy on top of that. Well, it was an experience, and quite a brilliant one of that.

The damage aounted to 130.00 € for a three-course-meal for two with one wonderful bottle of wine and another bottle of water. I forgot to mention we got small surprises from the kitchen between the dishes (a small soup and a sorbet, also excellent). It’s far from being cheap, but it was worth every cent. Go to the Cochon Bourgeois. It’s not cool, it’s not edgy, but it’s wonderful nonetheless. 

Overall Mark:

Le Cochon Bourgeois

Fichtestraße 24, 10967 Berlin

www.lecochon.de

Größere Kartenansicht

A Show of Savoir Vivre in West Berlin

La Cocotte - Schöneberg

Das Auge isst mit is a German saying translatable with „the eye takes part in the eating.“ Its point is the usual “presentation matters,” which we all know. Most people would (most probably) not like to eat anything that looks like troll excrements or a squashed frog. So far so good. But what about different sorts of presentation? Let’s say more theatrical ones?

The element of show involved in owning a restaurant had not bothered me in the slightest before Tom and Jamie, two London acquaintances of mine, decided to venture into the world of culinary service and open a café in East London. As London’s all about added value and exclusive identity, Tom and Jamie needed a concept and they needed it fast. They came up with the idea of an “entertainment café,” which would move its focal point from the banal idea of coffee into the value of its owners’ exquisite company and their ability to entertain their customers.

I found the idea utterly ludicrous. Call me old-fashioned, but I get the urge to punch people in the face if they happen to be trying to entertain me while I’ve got a chunk of quiche stuck down my throat. Tom and Jamie actually never got the opportunity to prove me wrong (as the entire business proved to be more expensive than what they had had in mind), but with time, I realised every restaurant had an element of showbiz attached to it. It can be the loud kind, like the 90’s classic Beverly Hills 90210’s obnoxiously annoying Brenda metamorphosing into the Southern Laverne just to keep her customers’ complaints at bay, or it can be the French kind, as I discovered last week in Schöneberg’s La Cocotte.

The restaurant seems to be a West Berliner institution of sorts. It enjoys the best location Schöneberg can offer on Vorbergstraße, a pleasant side street off the cute (and slightly overrated) Akazzienstraße. It has a charming garden outside, but fate so wished and we found our way there on a cold and rainy summer evening, which induced the discovery of La Cocotte’s interior space. And a discovery it was. Not because it was all too well designed. It wasn’t even that pretty. Yes, it had daft homo-erotic art works on the walls and the lightning was quite nice, but it was a bit drab with its dirty-grey walls. And then there were these tables crammed up on top of each other so that you got the feeling you couldn’t escape eavesdropping on your neighbour.

But wait a minute, a French restaurant with grey walls, filthy loos and narrow seating arrangements? Gosh, it sounds a bit like actually being IN France. Which it really was. Bit by bit, I realised La Cocotte was just one big show. It was all about recreating an authentic French restaurant in West Berlin. It doesn’t have the je-ne-sais-quoi feeling of posh aloofness attached to the traditional British or German perception of French culinary institutions. No trace of that perfect ambiance from an imagined utopia of beautiful things. This one is what the real stuff is made of.

And last, but not least, one could not recreate a credible impression of France without speaking to everyone in French and visibly expecting them to follow suit. I didn’t mind the bonjours and voilàs and the general underlying francophone snobbery, but then again, it can come across as intimidating (which some of the waiters clearly enjoyed in a fair number of cases). Quite unnecessary, at the end of the day.

And yet, going through all this effort to create a French Disneyland would not have done any good without the appropriate food quality. The menu was quite promising to begin with. It was not regional, like most restaurants in France would be, but it did make a point out of living up to the restaurant’s name and serving lots of casserole-based dishes (cocotte is – surprisingly enough - French for casserole) and a couple of unavoidable French classics like steak tartar or bouillabaisse.

Pissaladière

Terrine de Crustacés

We started by ordering two relatively simple starters (we decided to leave the likes of foie gras, noix de St. Jacques or escargots for another occasion, as they all cost between 7.50 and 9.50 € and we decided we could just as well stay below 6 € with the starters): the terrine de crustacés (shellfish terrine, 5.90 €) and the pissaladière (a Provencal onion confit with tomatoes, anchovies and black olives on a thin layer of bread-dough, 4.90 €). Both portions were well presented and large for the price (and for the fact it was a French place, where you know the chef actually has an excuse to keep the portions miniscule). The pissaladière’s quality was quite good with the only complaint being too little anchovy-olive presence. The terrine was harder to comment, as it was just perfect. Everything about it was just right: it was delicious with the exact right taste of sea; its texture was smooth and pleasing and even the rouille that was served on the side was a perfect match.

Bourguignon

Crème Brulée

If the starters were enough to teleport us to France, then the main courses were nothing less than a stroke of joy. We ordered the bouillabaisse (a fish and shellfish soup from Marseilles, served with croutons, rouille and cheese, 17.90 €) and the boeuf Bourguignon de joues (a Bourguigon made of veal cheeks, 13.90 €) together with a side of potato-olive-rosemary mash (for an additional 1.90 €). As both dishes came in their black, steamy iron casseroles, we could not help noticing that the quality was impressive even here. The bouillabaisse might not have been the best one I have ever had, but it was generous and refined. A Marseillais might frown a bit at it, but it was more than pleasing for our local Berliner circumstances. The Bourguignon was even more exciting. The meat was perfectly tender and the sauce was perfect. It was strong and refined at the same time – not originally so, Julia Childe wouldn’t mind eating it either.

What’s left? Oh, desserts. We went for the crème brulée (5.90 €) and the tartelette au citron (4.50 €). Both were no-bullshit-cookbook-standard desserts, which means they were not too original. And yet, both were perfectly executed, being perfectly tasty. The same applies to just about anything about La Cocotte – it is a standard French restaurant with all the froglike knots and bolts. If you can handle the French show aspect and want good-quality, to-the-point and in no way overpriced French food, La Cocotte’s team of squeaky waiters are waiting with just what you’re looking for!

Overall mark:

La Cocotte

Vorbergstraße 10, 10823 Berlin
http://www.lacocotte.de


View Larger Map

Vampire Francophilia

Nord-Sud

At the end of the 21st Century, even vampires seem to have realised French restaurants were a girl’s best friend. Just before True Blood’s Vampire Bill’s ludicrous proposition to Sookie in a splendidly romantic French restaurant, he justifies his choice of venue by the fact “humans love French restaurants”. As much as I dislike Vampire Bill, he has a point. Not only do humans love French restaurants, but posh humans seem to like them even more. French restaurants are the quintessential definition of expensive poshness. That is, until one actually finds their way into a French restaurant in France.

Yes, of course, there are quite a few awfully posh French restaurants in France. No doubt about it. Yet at the end of the day, the very institution of going out to dine at a restaurant is a lot more accessibly down-to-earth in the Republic of the Rights of Man, frogs and snails. Therefore, most restaurants are actually quite simple and they often are a lot more affordable than their counterparts in – let’s say – that island just across the canal.

As we all know, Berlin is quite an affordable place, but French restaurants are still a taboo when it comes to design, taste and affordability. They are usually there for Francophiles with the required taste and the money to support it. Yet no more! A few years ago, an alternative opened its gates in the most implausible place of all: on Augustrstraße in the very heart of Mitte. It is called Nord-Sud and it is run by the short, ginger Jean-Claude, a chti (that’s how you call people from the North of France) playing on people’s desire to get a “true French experience”.


You see, the deco is not entirely endearing. We’re talking about large wooden tables and simple chairs. Quite IKEA-like, yet very welcoming. The place exudes accommodating, nearly studenty simplicity. The owner-waiter runs around and tries talking to people in French. People who come there usually also want to speak back in French and to bathe in the sense of being in a true French place. The food concept contributes to that overall feeling: there is no real menu. Every day there are three set menus composed of a starter, a main course and a desert, an entire menu for 7.50 €.

We were a group of three and were therefore able to cover all the menus. At first we just ordered a bottle of Merlot (for the price of 17.50 € - definitely quite affordable. The problem was the water. The only non-French custom Nord-Sud has allowed itself to copy from the Germans was not serving tap water. In France tap water is actually a human right. But then again, we are in Germany, so we’re used to it). The first menu was a potato soup, émincé de dinde (sliced turkey in mustard sauce and potatoes) and a cherry cake. The second menu consisted of a pâté de campagne, two merguez sausages with couscous and ratatouille and a rhubarb cake. The third menu was a fish menu, with a fish terrine, rosefish filet with spinach and a cheese plate.

Fish Terrine

Paté de Campagne

Now, assessing a set menu for 7.50 € means you know the restaurant will have to cut corners somewhere. In this case I reckoned it would be better to cut on size than on quality, and was therefore not overwhelmed by the small portions. The soup was unspectacularly nice. Both pâtés were good, yet miniscule. The good thing was that we got an interminable supply of baguettes. The main courses were better. The turkey was drop-dead fantastic, and its size was quite pleasing. The sauce was splendid and the small, round potatoes appealed to my baby-hating friend Alisa’s motherly instincts. The merguez were a simple course, but still very good. Not to mention the fact it’s hard to get good merguez around here. The fish was a bit of a disappointment. It was a miniscule portion and the actual fish could have been better. But then again, the sauce was very good and the baguettes compensated for the otherwise small portion. The desserts were quite good as well. Both cakes were small and amusing, but not grand. The cheese plate was tiny, but its superb quality compensated for the initial size-related disappointment.

Merguez

Turkey

All in all, Nord-Sud is one of Mitte’s most amusing places. It’s probably not the place posh-humans would choose in order to propose to their girlfriends, but it will do for an affordable and amusing experience of what real France tends to be like.

Overall mark:

Nord-Sud

Auguststr. 87, 10117 Berlin (Mitte) 
Tel: +49 30 97005928


View Larger Map