Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
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Eat a döner kebab
Meat from the vertical rotisserie in toasted bread with salad, cabbage, onion and sauces. The Berlin version, with vegetables and three sauces, was invented here.
You will be asked which sauces: garlic, herb and hot, and most people take all three. The bread should be pressed on the grill or it goes soggy.
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Try currywurst
A fried sausage sliced into rounds under a tomato sauce dusted with curry powder, with chips or a roll. A post-war Berlin invention.
You will be asked mit Darm or ohne Darm: with or without the skin, and the skin gives snap. Every Imbiss has its own sauce, and that is how people choose.
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Eat Eisbein
A boiled pork knuckle with sauerkraut, pea purée and mustard. Unlike the southern German roasted version, this one is poached: soft, without crackling.
The portion is very large and built for winter. The pea purée is not a side but a required part of the dish.
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Try Königsberger Klopse
Veal meatballs in a white sauce with capers and lemon, served with boiled potato and beetroot. An East Prussian dish that stayed a Berlin classic.
The capers and lemon supply the acidity that carries the dish; without them it is flat. Anchovy belongs in the mince and provides the depth.
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Get falafel or sabich
The Middle Eastern street food of Kreuzberg and Neukölln: falafel in flatbread with tahini, sabich with aubergine and egg, hummus plates. Cheap and open almost around the clock.
Ask for the falafel fried to order rather than taken from the tray. Many places are entirely vegetarian, which makes this one of Berlin's easiest cuisines for vegans.
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Eat Vietnamese noodles
Pho, bun bo nam bo and summer rolls in the hundreds of Vietnamese places across the city. A legacy of two migration waves, eastern and western, whose cooking differs.
Bun bo nam bo, dry noodles with beef, peanuts and fried shallots, is more popular in Berlin than pho itself. Soy and chilli usually sit on the table.
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Go to Sunday brunch
A fixed-price buffet from eight in the morning until mid-afternoon: cheeses, eggs, pastries, cured meats, sometimes sparkling wine. A Berlin institution that requires booking.
On Sunday the popular places are impossible without a reservation. Shops are shut, which is why cafés take over the whole day.
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Try Spreewald pickles
Lightly salted cucumbers from the region south of Berlin, with dill, horseradish and mustard seed. Sold loose from barrels at markets and in shops.
They come as Salzgurken, salt-brined, and Gewürzgurken, spiced and sweeter, and they taste quite different. They go with Eisbein and beer rather than into a salad.
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Eat a Bulette
A flat fried patty with bread, onion and mustard, eaten warm or cold. The Berlin name for what the rest of Germany calls a Frikadelle.
Sold by the piece at Imbiss stands and butchers. Eaten with a roll and mustard, standing, as a snack rather than a meal.
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Try the winter dishes
Cabbage rolls in gravy, and Grünkohl, braised curly kale with smoked sausage, eaten only after the first frost.
The Grünkohl season runs November to February, and that is not marketing: frost sweetens the kale. Served with potatoes and mustard.
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Eat a Berliner Desserts and pastries
A doughnut filled with jam and topped with icing sugar or glaze. In Berlin itself it is called simply Pfannkuchen; only outside the city is it a Berliner.
The peak is New Year's Eve, when bakeries traditionally hide mustard in one doughnut as a joke. The classic filling is plum jam.
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Have Kaffee und Kuchen Desserts and pastries
The afternoon ritual: a slice of cake and coffee around four. Cheesecake, plum cake, strudel — every café has its own set.
German cheesecake uses quark, which makes it less sweet and denser than the New York kind. Plum cake is seasonal, August to October.
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Try Spaghettieis Desserts and pastries
Vanilla ice cream pressed through a ricer into spaghetti strands, with strawberry sauce standing in for tomato and white chocolate for parmesan. A German invention of the 1970s.
It is sold in Italian gelaterias across Germany, but it was born here. Whipped cream hides under the ice cream at the bottom.
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Drink Club-Mate Non-alcoholic drinks
A carbonated yerba mate drink: bitter, barely sweet and high in caffeine. A Berlin subcultural staple, drunk from the bottle in bars and on the street.
The first sip is unexpectedly bitter, which is normal. Bars mix it with vodka, and that drink is on every menu in Kreuzberg.
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Try Berliner Weisse Local alcohol
A low-alcohol sour wheat beer, traditionally served with a shot of syrup — raspberry or woodruff — to soften the acidity.
The green comes from woodruff and the red from raspberry; without syrup the beer is markedly sour. It is served in a wide glass with a straw, which is an old tradition.
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Drink a Pils or craft beer Local alcohol
Pils is the German default: dry and bitter, and Berlin has grown dozens of craft breweries over the past decade. A Kneipe is the old neighbourhood bar for the first, a taproom for the second.
A proper Pils takes seven minutes to pour, and hurrying the bartender is pointless. In a Kneipe you settle at the end and round the bill up.
