I made it to Restaurant Ernst in Berlin today - folks, everything I heard about it got topped by the real experience.
I will not call it best because there is no way to compare Vermeer to Van Gogh or El Greco to Mucha, they are too different - but it's definitely among my absolute recommendations.
I had the full menu (their only option) + the non-alcoholic pairing. Wanna come along?
(P.S. Folks, remember, I block ruthlessly if you poop on my party.)
@vicgrinberg friendly question. Would you consider using a cw or hashtag like #mastofood next time, so one could filter a thread like this, if necessary?
@vicgrinberg
Edit: I should have learned to be a little patient with the fediverse by now…
Was: Can you tell us about the menu you had? If I understand correctly it was prepared in the open kitchen directly adjacent to the bar you were sitting at?
@vicgrinberg how and what was the non-alcoholic pairing? Maria Groß serves in her restaurant close to Erfurt either matching wine or juices, and the juices are extremely good! So I'm curious what other places serve😁
@buerviper it was really good! Two were kombuchas, so slightly alcoholic (they would have done fully not alcoholic, they asked me!) - all super interesting! Etz in Nürnberg also does a non-alcoholic pairing I can recommend and will remember about Maria Groß if I'm ever in the area!
Daikon radish followed by two kinds of sepia - the different ways to cut it made such an amazing difference in what it tasted like (I also forgot to make a photo of the first started, a cup of dashi to set our taste) and a glas of home made quince drink that was very, very close (but still different) to a wonderful dry wine.
Kohlrabi (sliced super thinly and assembled again - it's mind blowing what you can get out of humble Kohlrabi with the right approach), artichokes & endives, mussels, artichoke tempure.
More artichokes, sashimi with three different kinds of citrus (so much of the menu was about experiencing the ingredients - you'll see things repeated over and over again in different variations, each one amazing; this one was about different fish and citrus variations), hazelnuts and radishes (what a combination - how does one even come up with the idea and makes it work so amazingly!), pear topped with fish topped with a pear mash (?).
@quidcumque I also really could not - they were both cooked, so rather mild. But it definitely makes me want to go out and try this combo on my own in some way! (I'll never reach the expertise of the dish here, of course, also because the sauce also brought it together, but maybe I still can get inspired to something...)
@chris mild and cooked as were the hazelnuts - most of the menu went towards very calm but deep experience, very Japanese inspired. That said, now I can also imagine raw radishes and hazelnuts as a combo that I really want to try to experiment with!
@vicgrinberg When thinking of hazelnuts in the kitchen I’m usually thinking of roasted hazelnuts, but I can imagine the mild taste of cooked hazelnuts to go together very well with quite some things. Maybe with Teltower Rübchen?
Very nice idea to do some experimenting on, thanks for bringing it up!
Also: I can have Soba as a tea? Why did’t anybody tell me about this all the years?
A speciality kombucha brew (wow, I may have found a new addiction to speciality kombucha!), a most perfect scallop, locally grown but Mexican heritage sweet potato with scallop roe (the potato had such an amazing texture!), another in house made drink - local apples and konbu, such an interesting Kombination that makes the sweet apple taste just right to accompany the food!
Roasted and dried and rehydrated squash (some kind of special butternut?) with dried persimmons and bottarga, prawn, smoked pomelo on ice, abalone (amazingly chewy - we've been extra told to chew longer to experience how it feels and changes in your mouth).
A different part of abalone (I love how they really try to use everything!) with cuttlefish ink and pistachios, charred spinach with abalone in an abalone sauce (made with the last leftover scraps, to use all the taste), code with roe in a perfect broth, roasted topinambur topped with mayo and salt (I ate the topinambur before I made the photo but luckily my neighbour allowed me to photograph his!).
Kohlrabi (we've been told it would come again and it was again amazing!) with mackerel, charred mackerel with sour plums, baby kale with an ink sauce, another amazing kombucha (where do I get those? mostly Rhetorical question although I do accept recs for places to order in NL or DE!)
Pork belly (a 7 year old Austrian pig, organic, farm-slaughtered), pork shoulder with speciality salt on the side, inviting to experiment with salt to meat, pear and soba cha in house made drink (the drinks just kept hitting just the right buttons for me - first quince and now soba cha, which I love and which hardly anyone knows!), a red grapefruit sorbet with smoked cream and a drop of pistachio oil.
Steamed and chatted cake, duck egg (ducks only start laying eggs once the day are becoming longer, so duck eggs are a sign of spring at the end of a wintery menu) cream with pomelo, duck egg ice cream with sauce, green tea with geleed cumquat and cake.
I now realize I forgot to photograph at least one dish, two absolutely amazing morels, topped with thinly sliced and lovely prepared shiitake. Possibly more. It all just so... "überwältigend" my table neighbors called it, in the best sense of it.
Anyway, thanks for joining me relieving a wonderful evening 💚
@mina yeah they definitely aim at highlighting the individual produce and the different ways they can taste 😊 And they told us a lot about where quiet some of the produce came from (a citrus farm that has some very old varieties, a farm in Southern Germany that they convinced to grow local ginger...) , super interesting!
The same owners are also running a second place called Julius that I want to try!
Having had more time to think about the meal I realized that I've never been in a restaurant where the artists (it's the best description I have for the master chefs and their teams) exposed themselves so much.
I've been to places where food was made in front of you, but not so much to the extreme as in Ernst. Not where the faces of the guests were such an immediate feedback.
The night before that, I was in theater (Gorki's Studio Я, showing a Theater adaptation of Michel Friendman's "Fremd") and stayed afterwards for the conversation with the stage director and the artistic director.
It was in a way a similar feeling - especially given the play, given the fact that the director was herself Jewish, the whole person context of the two people making this play happen.
But Ernst was perhaps even more so. Even more intimate, naked, vulnerable. But only afterwards, thinking about it; in the moment, it was just... otherworldly, a perfect flow.
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