“Chateau Royal”, “Roots” & “Berta”: an Evening at three new Berlin Hotel Bars
%20FLORIAN%20GROEHN-2.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/original.image_file.375.269.file/771566478/Telegraphenamt%20BAR%20(c)%20FLORIAN%20GROEHN-2.jpg)
© Florian Groehn
In the past, Berliners would never frequent a (Berlin) hotel bar. The spell was broken in 2009 by the “Amano Bar” located in the hotel of the same name in Mitte – which quickly became the “place to be”. Successful concepts like the “Monkey Bar” at “25hours” and the bar at “Hotel am Steinplatz” then followed. Now, (hopefully!) post-Covid, a new generation is coming up trumps. And Jan-Peter Wulf has been checking out some of the new bar venues “Chateau Royal”, “Roots” and “Berta Bar”.
Outside it’s a cold, wet Monday evening in Berlin. Inside, on the other hand, there’s an almost weekend atmosphere: open wine bottles on the tables, lots of full and empty glasses, bowls with oysters on ice on the counter. The audience: like at an art opening. Chic patterned suits, black-rimmed glasses, thick corduroy. We’re standing in the bar of the “Chateau Royal” hotel which emerged from that gastronomic cosmos orbiting around the legendary Grill Royal. “Grill” co-founder Stephan Landwehr opened the hotel together with his manager Moritz Estermann and Icelandic chef Victoria Eliasdóttir.
Wilhelminian architecture meets the 1920s
The “Chateau Royal” is a boutique hotel – a large one at that, counting almost 100 rooms. Its interior design is not only inspired by Berlin’s Wilhelminian period in the mid-19th century and the famous 1920s, but it’s even built in two adjacent, now interconnected buildings dating from these two eras. Here you’ll find herringbone and square parquet flooring, pale oak, coloured marble and those craquelé tiles (olive green in the open kitchen) familiar from West Berlin underground stations.
Chateau Royal © Felix Brueggemann
Light positioned behind colourful prismatic glass panes illuminates the staircase, just as it does on the rear buffet wall of the hotel bar made of filigree brass.
Spirit of nostalgia
At the l-shaped bar – upon which an artistically designed cockatoo perches – we settle in and ask for the menu. The wine list comes first (obviously the focus here), a lengthy affair featuring dozens of options. While the cocktail menu has only 13 entries – three of which are non-alcoholic – all are in-house creations like the “Chateau Express” with gin, white vermouth, sencha, mint and Amalfi lemon. After a short chat with our friendly barman Curtis (the small team is headed by Matteo Vacca, who was previously bar manager at “Soho House”, a similarly exclusive establishment), we opt for the mezcal-based “Hello, Stranger” with red vermouth, chilli and chocolate and clarified with coconut milk. Served up “subito”, it is both smoky and silky, boasting nice depth thanks to its chocolate flavours – a good choice on a chilly Monday evening. And if you’re feeling peckish, you can choose between sandwiches with oyster mushrooms, caviar with crispbread, a selection of cheeses or crispy potato slices. Lingering here so comfortably, it’s hard to believe the place only opened in autumn 2022. The interior, ambience and atmosphere all make the “Chateau Royal” seem like it’s been here for ages, in the best sense of the word. So you can see and feel this place isn’t aiming for fast trends, but instead for a certain timelessness, paired with nostalgic sprit. A really special place.
Bar culture in the historic telegraph office
We move on. It’s a fifteen-minute walk to the second new hotel currently being talked about in Berlin – the “Telegraphenamt” in Mitte. Here, too, there are almost 100 rooms, and again this is a building dating from the early 20th century. Once home to one of the largest and most state-of-the-art communications centres in Europe, it has undergone extensive renovation. And again a well-known restaurateur is at the helm: Roland Mary.
Roots © Florian Groehn
Heading up the restaurant “Borchardt”, a celebrity joint serving schnitzel with a cult status, and the large “Café am Neuen See” Mary is both hotelier and restaurant-cum-bar operator here. While the “Chateau Royal” at its corner location blends almost unobtrusively into the street scene, the “Telegraphenamt” with its own forecourt has the flair of a grand hotel. And it’s right on Monbijoupark, a top location without a doubt.
“Root” bar is huge
The large entrance with its many plants, bench seating and the eye-catcher, part of the historic pneumatic mail tube system, looks less like a classic hotel lobby and more like a large living room. Between the “non-lobby” and the large “Root” restaurant sits the “Root” bar positioned under a glass atrium (also like the one above the inner courtyard at the “Chateau Royal”). Wow: a huge room with an island-shaped bar around a massive pillar, which should take about the length of a martini to walk round. The bottles stand on a solid floating shelf suspended from the ceiling. In the “Root” bar – and it’s still a Monday and to our knowledge neither fashion week nor the film festival – there’s even more of a party atmosphere. Lots of people are sipping their drinks by the DJ’s booth currently mixing a house set or have made themselves comfy with drinks and snacks, either at the coffee tables or in the raised seating area along the back wall.
Designed for high volume
The food served from the long open-plan restaurant kitchen can also be enjoyed at the bar. Sushi is the main focus on the menu here, though tartare, seafood and vegetable tempura or teriyaki skewers are also on offer. The drinks menu at the bar has been kept comparatively brief with around 20 options. Some of them, interestingly, have a clock symbol next to them, intended to alert bar-goers to expect longer preparation time. But since they only serve classics or twists with a maximum of five ingredients and no creations that would require the use of kitchen tech, they are obviously geared towards high-volume service. Be that as it may: our "Blood And Sand" (which also has a clock next to it) is served quickly and tastes great. By the way, we learn that there is no bar manager here. The team is the boss – and they certainly do a really good job this evening.
Berta conquers Stresemannstraße
We try out the third new hotel bar on a Friday. It’s still quiet, basically because we’ve arranged to talk before it opens up in the evening. Until now, Berliners have practically never strayed into Stresemannstraße to go out – simply because there were few reasons to do so. But for weeks now, the city’s whole food scene has been talking about a certain Berta.
Berta Bar © Vision Photos
Berta is a restaurant Israeli celebrity chef Assaf Granit named after his grandmother (who once lived in Berlin) which has now opened in the new hotel “Precise Tale Berlin Potsdamer Platz”. Everything here – its Levantine cuisine, ambience, party atmosphere and service – has garnered the highest praise.
Party atmosphere
Indeed, this atmosphere we experience for ourselves later that evening when bar manager Noa Kadim takes us into the restaurant. It’s in full swing from the get-go, with loud music and something happening everywhere you look. At the small restaurant bar (another option), we try two of their signature cocktails centred on the 5 taste profiles: While the “Melucha” is a very drinkable twist on the margarita with maraschino, salt and pink peppercorns emphasising a salty note, the “Amamit” is a slightly sweet option with a distinctly satisfying, grassy, even fishy note thanks to its wakame algae-infused gin, plus green tea, vermouth and a green olive. As a standalone drink, this would be a real statement, but in tandem with savoury dishes, it’s a surprisingly rounded affair.
The bar as a counterpoint
Incidentally, nestled between “Berta” restaurant and “Berta” bar, each with separate entrances, is the spacious breakfast restaurant and daytime café “Bamia” serving a great brunch. Once a place you used to just scurry past on your way to Potsdamer Platz or Kreuzberg, this is now somewhere to spend the whole day – ideally rounding off with drinks in the dark, discreetly furnished cocktail bar, which sets a clear counterpoint to the very playful and ornamentally furnished restaurant. Here, deceleration is the order of the day. “We see Berta as a personality,” explains Noa Kadim, previously of the legendary “Hotel Montefiori” in Tel Aviv and the “Precise Tale” group in Paris, among others. While “Berta” over there is the warm-hearted mum who invites you into the big kitchen party, here she is the charming hostess inviting guests for a drink with her in her living room. Noa Kadim wants to convey this charm through the personal conversations she and her team of four have with guests. They take a lot of time for this: “We want people to fall in love with us and come back for more,” she says with a laugh.
From syrup to signature drinks
The drinks creations served here are also a delight: developed by the bar manager around homemade syrups we try them all – Moscato d'Asti and black pepper, pumpkin and thyme, pear-star anise-cinnamon, rosemary, celery as well as a carrot-based sour. The latter, for instance, she uses to mix “Gezer” – a creation combined with cognac, vermouth, orange liqueur and olive oil. We opt for “Nana”: white rum, rye whiskey, Fernet Branca and red vermouth, infused with coffee and the Yemeni spice blend Hawaij. While it may sound overly complex, it is in fact a highly aromatic and harmonious taste experience. We learn that in future they also plan to serve bar food from the kitchen directly behind the bar. So you’ll be able to choose from the entire range here and enjoy it to the full.
In a nutshell: Berlin now boasts three more hotel bars, well and truly shaking off that old cliché of tired nightclub haunts and instead attracting clientele with creative drinks, bar and restaurant food and a special ambience. Not got a room booked upstairs but still want to go downstairs to the bar? Be our guests.
Chateau Royal
Neustädtische Kirchstraße 3
10117 Berlin
www.chateauroyalberlin.com
Root im Hotel Telegraphenamt
Monbijoustraße 11
10117 Berlin
www.telegraphenamt.com/food-drink
Berta Bar
Stresemannstraße 99
10963 Berlin
www.precisehotels.com/tale-berlin/gastronomie/berta-bar
