Fuchs & Hase is a fabled new Bar on the Fringes of the German Capital
© Friederike Lenz
Bar ohne Namen
Entschlossen verweigert sich Savage, der Bar einen Namen zu geben. Stattdessen sind drei klassische Design-Symbole das Logo der Trinkstätte in Dalston: ein gelbes Quadrat, ein rotes Viereck, ein blauer Kreis. Am meisten wurmt den sympathischen Franzosen dabei, dass es kein Gelbes-Dreieck-Emoji gibt. Das erschwert auf komische Weise die Kommunikation. Der Instagram Account lautet: a_bar_with_shapes-for_a_name und anderenorts tauchen die Begriffe ‘Savage Bar’ oder eben ‚Bauhaus Bar‘ auf.
Für den BCB bringt Savage nun sein Barkonzept mit und mixt für uns mit Unterstützung von Russian Standard Vodka an der perfekten Bar dazu.
Good drinks a bit off the beaten track: “Fuchs & Hase” in south-west Berlin brings drinking culture to the quiet but affluent neighbourhood of Zehlendorf. So how do you whet people’s appetites for drinks over there?
The German saying “where the fox and the hare say goodnight” is a euphemism for somewhere that’s in “the back of beyond” – i.e. the only souls saying goodnight here are the fox and the hare. So does this saying referenced in the bar’s name also apply to the location of newcomer “Fuchs & Hase”? Well, from a city centre perspective, maybe it does because depending on the route, it’s 10 to 12 miles from Alexanderplatz to 3 Potsdamer Strasse in the Zehlendorf district in Berlin’s south-west. And who would travel that far when there’s so many bars to choose from in Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg, Neukölln and the like?
As big as Wiesbaden
That said, if you look at Zehlendorf in isolation, things look different. The district has almost 60,000 inhabitants. Together with Steglitz, which it has formed a joint district with since 2001, there are as many as 287,000 people here – a population the size of the Hessian state capital of Wiesbaden. And how many cocktail bars are there over here? “Not a single one in Zehlendorf so far,” explains bar manager Mike Meinke. In the entire district, he can only think of the bar at the “Knast” in Steglitz, 2.5 miles away, which opened in 2023. A gap in the market? Or is there simply no demand?
© Friederike Lenz
Moneyed clientele
Initially, Meinke was also sceptical when offered the job of managing this place located in a former tapas restaurant. “In any case I’d only be interested in running a bar,” says the bartending pro who realised concepts like Berlin’s “Triobar”, “Fairytale Bar”, “Chapel” and “Beyond Paradise” and who also offers courses and training with his “Barlife Experience”. But running a bar here of all places? Then he remembered: many customers always used to come to his bars from Zehlendorf. “And it was always people with money,” he adds with a laugh. With “old money” at that: In the villa neighbourhoods of Zehlendorf, families have often accumulated their wealth over generations. They travel a lot and like to go out to eat and drink. “But until now, anyone wanting to go to a bar round there had to go on a bit of a trek. Now they come to us,” says Meinke.
Storytelling is the key here
This might sound promising but it’s not quite that simple. Nobody expects a bar in a place like this – just a little building on an artery on the edge of the city. But unlike on Weserstraße in Neukölln, Kantstraße in Charlottenburg or Torstraße in Mitte, here there’s little to no footfall. Finding a bar here is a bit unexpected – meaning it has to “explain itself”. So the name “Fuchs & Hase – die fabelhafte Cocktailbar” (Fox and Hare, the Fabulous Cocktail Bar) isn’t just a nice play on words referencing the fabled phrase. In fact, trained advertising manager and business economist Meinke and graphic designer Friederike Lenz have both worked out a comprehensive narrative here in texts and illustrations: The eleven drinks currently on the menu – with one added every month until there are 18 – are each introduced by a little fable-like story written by Meinke himself. “We have countless storybooks at home and I like to write them myself,” explains Meinke, who has several kids of his own. His stories depict animal encounters, as we know them from the world of fables, and there’s also a moral to the story. On his forays through the night, the Fox meets the Hare – which is a drink made with Tatratea tea liqueur, black tea, rock candy syrup, orange bitters and cream cheese topping. The Fox meets the Frog is a drink combining gin, cucumber water and lime syrup. While the Fox meets the Squirrel is a “Walnut Whisky Sour”: All these creations are presented in polaroid-style photos stuck into the menu to make them easier to understand.
Out of your comfort zone
The photos are huge visual aids – what you see is what you get – but Meinke does want to challenge his customers a little too. For instance, with his “Crystal Espresso Martini”. This is a batched Espresso Martini variation made with one part espresso beans and two parts vodka, aged for a week, then filtered and served with coconut espuma in a cup-like glass. This raises questions for many customers who’ve never seen their Espresso Martini like this before, explains Meinke. They get the answer once they’ve tried the drink, which is extremely powerful and aromatic despite its colourless appearance. And this is exactly his aim: he wants to get the people of Zehlendorf out of their comfort zone, present them with something new – and win them over with quality. After all, caipirinhas and mojitos are also served in many of the restaurants in the neighbourhood.
© Friederike Lenz
Order your first drink from the menu, please
This is how we play it at Fuchs & Hase: you pick your first drink from the menu. After that, you can order something else if you want. “Yesterday, a customer ordered a Pisco Sour,” says Meinke. “I suggested he try our Rum Sour first – and later I mixed him the drink he originally wanted.” Incidentally, our next cocktail on the menu will be a variation on the Pisco Sour called the “Drama Lama”.
© Friederike Lenz
Gratitude and curiosity
“It's nice to see people are engaging with our story. Many read the fables accompanying each cocktail all the way through and then order their drinks,” says Meinke, who’s delighted by the gratitude and curiosity of the people of Zehlendorf. The bar, which only opened in mid-January 2025, already has many regulars, and Meinke is also helped by another member of staff on Fridays and Saturdays. That sounds like a successful start. “As they say: location, location, location. But you have to define this in a bit more detail,” says Meinke. “Fewer people come by here than in the centre, but we have practically no competition and lots of affluent customers.”
And once the courtyard terrace opens in spring, coming here from other parts of the city will be even more worthwhile: because the buildings surrounding this courtyard aren’t residential and also belong to the same owner – meaning patrons at the bar can sit, drink and enjoy the outdoors for much longer than they might elsewhere, until the fox and hare say goodnight.
