Berlin restaurateurs mark their histories

Rainer Schulz, left, and Roy Metzdorf at Schulz’s Kurpfalz-Weinstuben restaurant in west Berlin

This month two Berlin restaurateurs are hosting dinners to mark significant landmarks in their respective histories. On May 31, Rainer Schulz will celebrate the 75th anniversary of Kurpfalz-Weinstuben in the west of the city. In the north-east, Roy Metzdorf will host a party for the 70th birthday of his father Dieter, who inspired him to open his restaurant, Weinstein, in 1993 and then underwrote the losses during its first decade.

The two hosts also have strong personal ties. Metzdorf describes Schulz as his mentor and says the elder man warned him about all the pitfalls of running a restaurant once Metzdorf had abandoned his initial career as an electrical engineer.

Schulz is an excellent physical advertisement for his profession. Now 71, he has been in charge of his restaurant for the past 35 years but still manages to combine great physical stamina with equal amounts of charm, greeting customers with a broad smile. Grey-haired, with a twinkle in his eye, he enjoys a passion for well-prepared German food and good wine from his well-stocked cellar.

It seems like Schulz has absorbed the calming aura of the building he has inhabited for so long. Built in 1898, it is basically a series of dark, panelled intimate rooms – although there is an outdoor terrace in the warmer months – with simple wooden furniture and historic memorabilia in every corner. It is the kind of setting that inspires comfort and good conversation.

A Berliner described Schulz’s fare as “the kind of food every German child grows up with, but it’s rarely as well cooked as this”. The restaurant is a magnet for Germans, lured by its comfort food, such as the ham it imports from south Tyrol, the venison brawn and sausage, home-made sauerkraut, and its excellent rendition of the haggis-like saumagen .

The wine list will attract any enthusiast. One simple card details the large range of wines available by the glass while a more formal wine list sets out the best from around the world and numerous, mature German wines from the most highly rated producers.

While Metzdorf openly acknowledges the professional debt he owes Schulz, he also praises his own father for instilling in him a love of food and wine that led him and his partner Max Krull to open Weinstein in a former butcher’s shop.

Both Metzdorf and Krull grew up in East Berlin, where wine was relatively rare before the fall of the wall in 1989. But Metzdorf’s father’s job as a factory manager took him to southern Europe once a year and on each trip back the boot of his car bore the weight of several bottles of French, Spanish or Italian wine, which kindled a passion in his son. He refers to Weinstein as “my living room” and it is one of the few restaurants in Berlin that is open every night. This professional living room exhibits wine at every turn, from open and unopened bottles on the shelves to harvest baskets hanging on the wall, interspersed with barrels, glasses and jars.

Weinstein is also distinguished by personal touches that Metzdorf has introduced from his years as a restaurateur. The first is a menu that offers unlimited, free mineral water and coffee to anyone ordering at least three courses. The second is a dish of “midnight ribs”, smoked calf’s ribs with their own home-made barbecue sauce, available from 11pm to 1am. The third is its particularly fair prices, with main courses from €7.50.

His chef travels widely in search of the best ingredients. The hams come from Spain, Germany and Austria, the cheese from France. The freshwater pike, zander and perch that formed the base of an invigorating fish consommé with crisply fried zander roe had been caught on Lake Zechlin in Brandenburg.

For the next few weeks, Metzdorf and his kitchen team will not even have to look that far afield for their dish of young goat served with dandelion leaves and wild garlic and the plates of thick, white asparagus, which are available at this time of year.

On my visit, I experienced a third establishment that mixes exciting food with quality wine. Die Quadriga restaurant lies in the formal and luxurious setting of the tranquil Brandenburger Hof Hotel, close to the city centre. Led by Finnish chef Sauli Kemppainen, the restaurant has a 60-page, award-winning, all-German wine list.

Kemppainen is the best-known high-profile exponent of modern Scandinavian cooking in Germany, and his mussel and prawn consommé and a dish of reindeer fillet with a fir jelly that I tried was exciting in its precision, composition and particularly intense flavour.

There are also plenty of intense flavours among the wines on a list that includes many great Mosel wines. And enjoyably, Die Quadriga’s dining room incorporates a set of sliding doors into the kitchens from which the waiting staff appear under a spotlight, as if they were contestants in a television talent show. Altogether, the restaurant offers plenty of stimulation for the eye, the brain and the stomach.

nicholas.lander@ft.com

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