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Restaurant · Berlin, Germany
Zur letzten Instanz
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Written by RuinMyTrip Editorial from published research and official sources, not from a personal trip. It is not a traveler review and is never counted in the community rating. How we research.
What it is
A restaurant in the Nikolaiviertel in Mitte, trading since 1621 and generally described as the oldest in Berlin, serving traditional Berlin cooking in an early seventeenth-century building.
Why travelers eat here
For the room and the four centuries behind it, and because it costs no more than an ordinary Berlin restaurant to sit in one.
What is genuinely good
A genuinely old dining room with its original tiled stove, ordinary prices, hearty Berlin cooking and a quiet corner location.
Downsides
Unambitious cooking. Heavy emphasis on famous former guests. Small, so booking is needed. The rebuilt quarter around it divides opinion.
Best for
Anyone interested in old Berlin, and anyone wanting a traditional meal that is not a themed beer hall.
Consider eating elsewhere if
You are in Berlin for the modern food scene. Kreuzberg and Neukolln are where that is.
Practical advice
Book, because it is smaller than it looks. Sit in the front room with the stove rather than the back. Combine it with the Nikolaikirche two minutes away.
Prices and reservations
A la carte, with starters from 6 euros. Reservations recommended, particularly at weekends.
Getting there
U2 to Klosterstrasse, then three minutes on foot. It is ten minutes' walk from Alexanderplatz.
Where it sits
Waisenstrasse on the edge of the Nikolaiviertel, Berlin's medieval quarter, rebuilt in the 1980s around a handful of genuinely old survivors, of which this is one.
How long to allow
An hour and a half.
The RuinMyTrip verdict
Go for the room and the four hundred years, not the cooking. At these prices that is an easy trade.
Sources
Every figure above was checked against these before publication. If one has since changed, tell us and we will correct it.
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Pickled vegetables are 6 euros. source
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Matjes with yoghurt and red onion is 10 euros. source
From the RuinMyTrip team
Written by RuinMyTrip Editorial from published research and official sources, not from a personal trip. It is not a traveler review and is never counted in the community rating. How we research.
Zur letzten Instanz charges 6 euros for pickled vegetables and 10 euros for matjes with yoghurt and red onion, which places it firmly in the ordinary-prices bracket for a restaurant that has been trading since 1621. It claims to be the oldest restaurant in Berlin and the claim holds up better than most: the building is early seventeenth century, the tiled corner stove is original, and Napoleon, Beethoven and Chirac…
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