We love to show our #bestnine for 2018! A year filled with nice restaurants, cosy cafés and so many great vegan food experiences. Thank you very much for your support – we clearly see that you, just as us, like many varied dishes, from pizza and burgers to Asian cuisine and everything in between. Now we are looking forward to 2019 – let’s make that even better!
The pictures are the nine most liked photos on our Instagram page. Click here if you not already are following us! ⠀ The restaurants on the photo, counting from the left to right, are the following:
One of the restaurant owners told us that already when their new Italian, vegetarian restaurant named Restaurant Sotto opened a few months ago, it was a huge success – people were standing queuing outside. We found the place by a recommendation on Facebook, and when we read about it, we knew we had to try. We even dared to bring my meat-eating family.⠀ ⠀ They have both vegan and vegetarian dishes, of which many can be veganized. We ordered bruschetta with pumpkin cream and tempeh for starter and got amazed with the first bite. Pumpkin with tahini and taste of orange – just the mention of it must make you drool. As the main dish, we chose homemade pizza “Zucca Vegane” with pumpkin cream, almond cream cheese, fresh herb pesto, red onions and rosemary and a pumpkin risotto with rosemary, stirred with almond cream and nutritional yeast (have we mentioned that we like pumpkin?). Both were so creamy with a great combination of tastes! We were also impressed by their creativity – what about a homemade bowl of coffee sciatelli (pasta) with Jerusalem artichoke and roasted hazelnuts? The (very friendly!) staff told us that they wanted that everybody would like their food, not only vegans. And I know you are super curious … Yes, my meat-eating family loved it. Success!⠀
Restaurant Sotto, Neue Hochstraße 25, 13347 Berlin – Wedding
We learned about Kernvoll when we opened Happy Cow’s website and noticed that there was a new place in the “near me” section – just a few streets away from our home. After having a look at their website, it turned out that this was not only an ordinary vegan restaurant, it seemed to be a whole concept. They offer catering, brunch and even a vegan clothing brand named Organic Tailoring. As you already might have suspected, everything from Kernvoll is organic – including the food.
We also saw that one couldn’t just spontaneously go there whenever you want to – they only have open two or three times a week, of which one of the days you will have to order in advance. Therefore, it took a while unti we finally managed to come to their weekly Pizza Friday (or #pizzafreitagas Kernvoll itself calls it). Let’s put it like this: it was worth waiting for.
Everything is homemade. The fresh pizza bread made of spelt, the creamy vegan cheese and they even had lemonade made of home-cooked syrup. The very friendly service told us all about their menu and made suggestions of what to choose. You really got the feeling of being taken care of as a guest – we even got some fresh, homemade pizza buns as a starter. We ordered a shared plate with slices of all the three pizzas they currently had on their menu. The mushroom & caramelized onion was sweet, yet savoury, the olive & fresh tomato had such a wonderful basil pesto, while the slices with arugula, cherry tomatoes, pomegranate & cashew parmesan were genius, with a perfect balance of sweet and sour.
So, what are your plans for next Friday? If you are already booked, you should at least go there the Sunday after – then they have brunch and vegan cakes. I already know that we will have a sweet tooth by then…
If you want to see their schedule, please visit their website: https://www.kernvoll.de/
Kernvoll, Samariterstraße 34, 10247 Berlin – Friedrichshain
Nord Coast Coffee Roastery you visit for the coffee – carefully prepared with high-quality beans and served black or with Oatly barista oat milk (the best coffee milk that exists). This cappuccino tasted amazing! If you also want to enjoy a good breakfast, they have three options that can be prepared vegan: a pitaya bowl (which also is gluten free), a quinoa salad and, which I chose, an acai bowl. We always have the problem that the smoothie bowls you order have too little topping and granola, which was the case at this café as well. But the acai bowl itself was good, although a bit too sweet. But it was very beautiful prepared, and you really felt taken care of from the staff, even though it was full, which otherwise can make anyone stressed. So, if you just want to enjoy a nice time with a good cup of coffee, this is the place to be!
Nord Coast Coffee Roastery, Deichstraße 9, 20459 Hamburg
Le Crobag
Ever struggling around hungry in a train station without finding anything proper to eat? Yeah, we too. Only that this time, at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (the central station), we found something that even tasted very good! At Le Crobag they had two baguettes with delicious basil tofu with fresh tomatoes, (unfortunately no picture, we were too hungry) and even vegan, creamy chocolate muffins to indulge as a Sunday dessert. If it is nice weather outside, we’d suggest you find a bench in the city and enjoy it there. Or if you are traveling somewhere, simply make your train breakfast a bit more exciting by bringing these.
Le Crobag, Hamburg Hauptbahnhof
Happen Pappen
Another star we found in Hamburg is Happen Pappen! It is a small, all vegan place with an often-changing menu. We chose a lasagne with different veggies and a thyme-béchamel sauce with loads of salad, which was super good! As you can see, we were too hungry to remember to picture it first, but as the portions were quite generous, we could leave with full stomachs. Behind the lasagne, you can see a bit of an Indian curry with zucchini, eggplant, chickpeas and kidney beans, which tasted better than any other curry we’ve tried in Berlin (as we are big fans of Asian cuisine, this should say a lot). Now, as we also have a sweet tooth, we had to try one of their cakes. The choice fell on the gluten-free carrot cake. It tasted good, but the consistency was not the best, it was not that fluffy or creamy as it should be. Most likely because it lacked gluten, which makes it harder to create a nice consistency. Altogether, as we were so impressed by the main courses, the service was great, location small and cosy, we would for sure revisit it – and you should too!
Happen Pappen, Feldstraße 36, 20357 Hamburg – St. Pauli
Kiez Curry
Late night, lost at Reeperbahn and nowhere to eat? Only, there is somewhere
you can fill your cravings for vegan fast food. The name is Kiez Curry and you
can find it just a block away from the main street.
For you that aren’t familiar of the German kitchen, Currywurst is almost considered a national dish of the similar rank as kebab and schnitzel. It’s simply a sausage with curry ketchup, preferably enjoyed with pommes or a white bread bun. At Kiez Curry you can find it vegan, and what makes it so good is their hot self-made curry sauce, and real St. Pauli feeling for sure ads up to it. Devour the dish with a beer and have a chat with the friendly owner before you head back to the dancefloor. Got hungry again? No worries, on weekends it’s open until five in the morning.
Kiez Curry, Querstr. 2, Hamburg – St. Pauli
Pizza Bande
One of the best surprises in Hamburg was Pizza Bande, a pizzeria near Reeperbahn, where you have a free choice of toppings that you want to put on your pizza. However, we chose from their weekly changing “special” pizzas – and these where no classic vegan Calzones or boring Vegetarianas. It was a vegan tuna pizza with seaweed and coconut milk, and a Mexican pizza with all the traditional toppings such as minced “meat”, kidney beans, corn and pineapple (to all the pineapple-on-pizza-haters out there: YES, you can have everything on pizza, fruit as well!). Both did, of course, include vegan “cheese”. The tuna pizza was outrageous, we’d even go so far to call genius! Combine the fishy taste of seaweed and “tuna” with sweet coconut milk? Brilliant! This was for sure one of the best pizzas we ever had. The Mexican pizza was also super tasty, just what you expect from a Mexican pizza – but that is quite hard to find without meat. We assure you, these pizzas were something we really enjoyed. A long time later, they keep popping up in our daily food dreams. Perhaps we should book another trip to Hamburg soon?
Pizza Bande, Lincolnstraße 10, 20359 Hamburg – St. Pauli
