A Sophisticated Supper in Berlin

Octopus carpaccio

So there I was minding my own business, when I was invited to dinner in Germany's capital city. I thought about it for all of two seconds, packed my bag and was out the door before you could say "ich bin ein Berliner"!

In the upmarket Gendarmenmarkt area, we sat down in a chic and discreet environment, with a well stocked bar and modern jazz playing unintrusively in the background.

After a pick-me-up martini (shaken, not stirred - naturally), we felt brave enough to be adventurous with our starters.

The warm, wafer-thin octopus carpaccio was dressed with linseed oil, ever so slightly spiced curry emulsion and was accompanied finely shaved asparagus. Topped with a translucent seeded white chocolate bar, this was really indulgence at its finest. When you didn't think about the fact that this was essentially raw octopus, it was absolutely delicious, with no tentacles to distract you from the perfectly balanced delicate flavours. 

Peppered raw tuna

Fresh (read "raw") was the name of the game as we were also served a beautifully presented and meaty peppered raw tuna with a lemon grass risotto salad on a tapenade of apricots and red onions. 

Veal breast

Moving languidly and indulgently on, the best main course we tried was the breast of veal, braised in oriental spices with fried octopus and chanterelle  kohlrabi lasagne. The veal wasn't tough but definitely solid enough to let you know it was probably going to give you all the protein you needed for a week while the elegant mushrooms and crispy octopus tentacles (wonder if they came off my starter? Admirably cost-effective if they did...) reminded you that this was haute  - or rather, hoch - cuisine.


Cremes brulees

Dessert is always one of those dishes that I both adore and dread; I adore it because I love sweetness; I dread it because it's like approaching the end of a good book. I've enjoyed it so much that I'll be sorry when it's over and dessert is the herald of the end of the meal, rather like Poirot gathering all the protagonists together to reveal who the murderer was. But I digress...

Chocolate mousse & ginger tea

We couldn't choose between a trilogy of luxuriously creamy cremes brulees and the less traditional iced ginger and fruit tea with orange chocolate mousse and tobacco flavoured ice cream. So naturally, we had both!

And - in keeping with the overall direction of the meal - the more unusual dessert was our favourite. The mousse was light and airy, sitting in a edible cup of tempered chocolate topped by a kumquat. The ginger tea was strangely compelling, pleasantly burning at the back of your throat long after it had gone. For me, the only mild disappointment was that tobacco ice cream is indistinguishably similar to vanilla ice cream. It matched the dish and was a welcoming cooling influence on the ginger tea and I suppose if they had just advertised it as vanilla, I would have been more than happy.

If you're ever in Berlin and want to have a sophisticated evening out, I do recommend La Gendarmerie (http://www.gendarmerie-berlin.com/)