Berlin for foodies

Best restaurants

Berlin eats like the city it is: long-running German rooms that have never updated their schnitzel, regional kitchens that hold to old-style Berlin cooking, and an international layer — Vietnamese, Italian, Mexican, Indian, American barbecue — folded into the local week without ceremony. The twelve below sit in central Berlin, where tourist density is heaviest and the kitchens have had to either compete on quality or get washed out by it. They compete on quality: a chain steakhouse that out-cooks the carbon-copy rooms around it; old-Berlin German rooms and regional kitchens that have not been redecorated for the camera; an honest Vietnamese counter; an Italian dining room with a kitchen that runs late; a Mexican operation with an earlier Sunday window than its weekday one; an American-style barbecue house; an Indian kitchen that runs to the small hours; and a burger-and-German place that took both seriously. None are secret, none are smug. Each is open most days of the week, reachable by phone, and at an address you can find on the map without help. Treat the rank as a starting suggestion, not a verdict.