The lost spirit of Berlin is back!
Mar. 3rd, 2007 03:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusBerlin never yuppifies. Here, pioneering bohemians just don't get priced out of the very neighbourhoods they've enhanced with their courage, imagination and ingenuity, and don't get replaced by unpleasant, arrogant folk who work in finance. Sure, that might happen in London or New York, but it doesn't happen here. No sirree. That's what I like to tell people, anyway, and to some extent it's true.
Well, actually, to be honest, it's not all that true. What I mean is, it's a question of degree. Sure, districts like Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte have probably changed more quickly than districts anywhere on Earth (just fifteen years ago, restaurants on the ultra-bourgeois Kollwitz Platz used to unscrew all external lightbulbs of an evening so the squat punks couldn't smash them). But, with financial and industrial types safely confined to Germany's more Westerly cities, the games of Musical Chairs seen in London and New York don't happen here. Huge numbers of Berliners remain broke, which is why the prices and rents here stay so extraordinarily low.
I could, though, give you a list of the things that made Berlin great when I first moved here, way back in, oh, early 2003, and tell you how they no longer exist. I'm not quite sure whether to blame too much yuppification for this or not enough. The wonderful Automaten Bar has been replaced by a generic fashion store. That was probably a case of the artists who ran it getting bored. It happens. But it was also certainly a case of Mitte rents going up. The same thing has just happened in Friedrichshain, where the venerable Volksladen has just closed, citing the end of their lease and an unacceptable rent hike.
Volksladen (The People's Shop) was an organic bakery and cafe on Gabriel-Max-Strasse furnished like a nursery school. It was run by a Herr Volks (Mr People), who modelled it on the kindergartens set up by radical Berlin parents, known as Kinderladens. Yumi Son, who runs the nearby Smart Deli, did a little article about the closure of Volksladen in the latest issue of her magazine Taken. Mr Volks, who also runs a local restaurant, is "a very nice single man," Yumi writes, "and I will introduce him to someone if I can find the right person".
I've just heard that the wonderful Le Petit Mignon, which is on my street in Neukolln, Sanderstrasse, will close at the end of March. Le Petit Mignon is run by a dreadlocked Frenchman called Guillaume. It stocks Japanese noise CDs, mangas, copies of Street magazine, DVDs, beer... and throws great parties. The last will be held on March 24th, and will feature live music and an art exhibition (they're usually splashed all over Guillaume's kitchen). Le Petit Mignon promises to re-open somewhere, sometime, but doesn't sound too sure.
A similar uncertainty has surrounded Cocolo Ramen for almost a year now. Run by designer Oliver Prestele, Cocolo has been a Berlin institution for about ten years. Two nights a week -- Friday and Saturday -- Olly has wheeled his self-designed ramen stall (all packed into red flightcases) to a temporary location and set up shop, making the most delicious ramen you'll ever taste outside of Japan (and better than a lot you'll taste inside it too). Olly may be only a part-time chef, but he doesn't do things by halves. As you can see in this Japanese TV report, Olly designed and built his own ramen-making machine from scratch, did the same with the stall, and went to Japan many times to study "the way of the noodle". Hisae says: "I think he just looks like a German, but when he makes ramen he's Japanese."
Last month I told you that Olly was opening a full-time ramen restaurant on Gippstrasse in Mitte, and yesterday Hisae and I went to see if it was open yet. I went into the Japanese restaurant at Gippstrasse 3 to ask them if they knew where Cocolo Ramen was, and there was Olly himself, dressed in dark blue overalls, sitting at a table with some Japanese men. He pointed next door and told me the new place was right there, then took me over for a preview glimpse. He's been working on carving the wooden counter (no more flightcases -- this is a permanent location) non-stop for the last few weeks. Singlehanded.
The place was small and smelt strongly of industrial glue. In a week or so it'll be tightly packed and smell delicious. Olly hopes to open next weekend. He'll continue to make ramen just twice a week, delegating the rest of the time to a German cook. Not a Japanese? "No," says Olly, "I wanted someone to start fresh and learn it from scratch, someone who'd have the enthusiasm".
A little of the old Berlin spirit (ah, those heady days of late 2005!) will return with Cocolo. A hearty Berliner banzai for that!
Well, actually, to be honest, it's not all that true. What I mean is, it's a question of degree. Sure, districts like Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte have probably changed more quickly than districts anywhere on Earth (just fifteen years ago, restaurants on the ultra-bourgeois Kollwitz Platz used to unscrew all external lightbulbs of an evening so the squat punks couldn't smash them). But, with financial and industrial types safely confined to Germany's more Westerly cities, the games of Musical Chairs seen in London and New York don't happen here. Huge numbers of Berliners remain broke, which is why the prices and rents here stay so extraordinarily low.
I could, though, give you a list of the things that made Berlin great when I first moved here, way back in, oh, early 2003, and tell you how they no longer exist. I'm not quite sure whether to blame too much yuppification for this or not enough. The wonderful Automaten Bar has been replaced by a generic fashion store. That was probably a case of the artists who ran it getting bored. It happens. But it was also certainly a case of Mitte rents going up. The same thing has just happened in Friedrichshain, where the venerable Volksladen has just closed, citing the end of their lease and an unacceptable rent hike.
Volksladen (The People's Shop) was an organic bakery and cafe on Gabriel-Max-Strasse furnished like a nursery school. It was run by a Herr Volks (Mr People), who modelled it on the kindergartens set up by radical Berlin parents, known as Kinderladens. Yumi Son, who runs the nearby Smart Deli, did a little article about the closure of Volksladen in the latest issue of her magazine Taken. Mr Volks, who also runs a local restaurant, is "a very nice single man," Yumi writes, "and I will introduce him to someone if I can find the right person".
I've just heard that the wonderful Le Petit Mignon, which is on my street in Neukolln, Sanderstrasse, will close at the end of March. Le Petit Mignon is run by a dreadlocked Frenchman called Guillaume. It stocks Japanese noise CDs, mangas, copies of Street magazine, DVDs, beer... and throws great parties. The last will be held on March 24th, and will feature live music and an art exhibition (they're usually splashed all over Guillaume's kitchen). Le Petit Mignon promises to re-open somewhere, sometime, but doesn't sound too sure.
A similar uncertainty has surrounded Cocolo Ramen for almost a year now. Run by designer Oliver Prestele, Cocolo has been a Berlin institution for about ten years. Two nights a week -- Friday and Saturday -- Olly has wheeled his self-designed ramen stall (all packed into red flightcases) to a temporary location and set up shop, making the most delicious ramen you'll ever taste outside of Japan (and better than a lot you'll taste inside it too). Olly may be only a part-time chef, but he doesn't do things by halves. As you can see in this Japanese TV report, Olly designed and built his own ramen-making machine from scratch, did the same with the stall, and went to Japan many times to study "the way of the noodle". Hisae says: "I think he just looks like a German, but when he makes ramen he's Japanese."
Last month I told you that Olly was opening a full-time ramen restaurant on Gippstrasse in Mitte, and yesterday Hisae and I went to see if it was open yet. I went into the Japanese restaurant at Gippstrasse 3 to ask them if they knew where Cocolo Ramen was, and there was Olly himself, dressed in dark blue overalls, sitting at a table with some Japanese men. He pointed next door and told me the new place was right there, then took me over for a preview glimpse. He's been working on carving the wooden counter (no more flightcases -- this is a permanent location) non-stop for the last few weeks. Singlehanded.
The place was small and smelt strongly of industrial glue. In a week or so it'll be tightly packed and smell delicious. Olly hopes to open next weekend. He'll continue to make ramen just twice a week, delegating the rest of the time to a German cook. Not a Japanese? "No," says Olly, "I wanted someone to start fresh and learn it from scratch, someone who'd have the enthusiasm".
A little of the old Berlin spirit (ah, those heady days of late 2005!) will return with Cocolo. A hearty Berliner banzai for that!