Cookies Cream vegetarian restaurant in Berlin, where you pay extra for the mystique.
Berlin is known as being a haven for vegan food. It's also known for having some of the lowest restaurant prices in Europe.
Cheap, plentiful vegan food...well, not exactly. Like anywhere, you have to be armed with knowledge and the ability to find the most out-of-the-way location. Fortunately, I had both, thanks to Bazu, who provided me with a list of vegan eats in Berlin, and to a husband who suddenly developed a sense of direction.
After tramping through museums all day, we were hungry and cold, and wanted nothing more than to sit down to a satisfying meal. Or maybe stand up and eat a vegan hot dog. A place called Hot Dog Soup sounded intriguing. I had an address, and a U-bahn stop, but unfortunately it was located off our map of central Berlin.
After a bit of confusion we figured out the U-bahn system. (For some reason, German public transport has always stumped me. Maybe it's that I don't speak a lick of German.) We got to Frankfurter Tor, the stop near Hot Dog Soup but then came to a dead halt outside the station. Which direction to go in? Usually I have the directional sense of a homing pigeon, while my husband is hopelessly lost, but in the dark I'm a blind mouse. So he found a map at the S-bahn stop, located Grünberger Straße, and successfully guided us to the right place.
Yes, there really is a Hot Dog Soup in Berlin. It's small—only a couple of counters, and it offers hot dogs and soup. That's it, but the variety of hot dogs makes up for the sparse menu. You can get any hot dog (named after places, like Brazil and Hawaii and Chile) with a vegan frankfurter, and a couple of the soups were marked with a V. We chose the apple curry lentil soup, which turned out to be some of the best soup I've ever had. I immediately decided the long schlep to Grünberger Straße was worth it.
Since, for me, hot dogs are simply mustard delivery devices, I asked for a plain hot dog with mustard. My husband got a fancy one, and I guess he liked it, because it kept him occupied while I scarfed down the one bowl of soup we'd got to share. I feel bad about that, so now I'm going to have to figure out how to make Apple Curry Lentil soup.
The best part about our funky little meal in a funky part of Berlin was the price. Two hot dogs, a bowl of soup and a drink set us back 8.50. Including the train fare, we were out less than 15 euros.
Nice.
The next night I wanted to go upscale, and I wanted to avoid a long confusing train ride. I'd read about a vegetarian restaurant called Cookies Cream, and discovered it was only a few blocks from our hotel in Potsdammer Platz. It, too, sounded intriguing—it's located over a nightclub called Cookies, as the concierge at the hotel informed me when he made a reservation for me. It had good reviews on Happy Cow, the international vegetarian restaurant guide, so I was eager to check it out.
Again, finding it was the hard part. Despite locating the address we were stuck. No restaurant in sight, only a Westin Hotel. Finally we asked a shopkeeper, who informed us it was around the back. We turned down an alley, turned right again, went past some garbage dumpsters, averting our gaze from the dead rat, and turned left. There, in a hidden nook, was a sign: Cookies Cream.
What an incongruous location for a restaurant named after a delightful dessert. Those Berliners sure know how to do irony!
We rang the bell, and after several minutes we were summoned inside. We went through the empty club and up some dark stairs to a candlelit restaurant.
The space was lovely. White tablecloths, fresh flowers, and sparkly wine glasses almost made me forget about the dead rat.
We were handed a one-page menu, with 3 or 4 items in each category. I assumed at least one was vegan, but I assumed wrong. I've never heard of a vegetarian restaurant that didn't offer vegan items. Especially a restaurant that seems to pride itself on being hip. Maybe the club downstairs only catered to arthritic old Bavarians, not hip, healthy vegan Berliners.
A square meal
Or maybe I'm too harsh. The server promised me the chef could veganize one item from each course on the menu. It's a fixed price menu (three courses for 32 euros) and the wine was around 35-50 euros a bottle for mid-priced vintage. My meal was good, but sparse. After a leafy salad, I was served a tiny square of risotto on a huge plate, with some poached grape tomatoes on the side. Dessert was—you guessed it—a tablespoon of pear sorbet.
I was hungry by the time I got home, despite having to walk past that dead rat again.
When we suggested to our server that they put a sign leading people to the restaurant, he told us they prefer that Cookies Cream is hard to find. I guess it adds to the insidery mystique.
I have some advice: Save yourself the trouble, especially if you're vegan. Head to Hot Dog Soup instead, for a satisfyingly groovy meal, and leave the cookies and cream for the squares.
Hot Dog Soup: Grünberger Straße 69. From Frankfurter Tor U-bahn, face the twin towers and go left on the S-bahn (or walk in that direction) 1 stop to Grünberger Straße.
Cookies Cream: 030-27492940 Behrenstrasse. 55 From the Memorial to Murdered Jews, head up Behrenstrasse almost to the Westin Hotel, turn left at 55, go to the end of the alley, turn right, go past the dead rat, then left, and the entrance is on the right up a short flight of stairs.
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