Читать книгу 100 Favourite Places - Группа авторов - Страница 11

07

Café Buchwald

MOABIT

Café Buchwald sits at one end of a bridge traversing the Spree at the edge of the leafy Hansaviertel (see p. 36). Already 160 years old, the cafe has been owned by the same family since the beginning and run mostly by women, whose pride of craftsmanship when it comes to their cakes is unparalleled. Dressed in matching uniforms, they serve up sweet slices from cream-based to fruity to chocolate in an interior that’s all stiffly starched tablecloths, lace curtains and Jugendstil wallpaper.

Through the front room, where cakes are displayed on shelves and in cooled vitrines, the double doors lead to the main dining room. Take a seat at a center table, from which the bustle of the shop’s multigenerational staff can be seen and felt, and the ever-rarer Berlin dialect of their banter with customers can be heard clearly. Perhaps, in your anticipation, you’ll flash back to your childhood kitchen, where you sat waiting to be blessed with something sweet on a plate, and along with it, your mother’s silent assent that you were finally allowed to indulge.

At Café Buchwald, guests are encouraged to indulge too, especially when it comes to a certain speciality: the German delicacy known as Baumkuchen. The strange name (it means ‘tree cake’) comes from the tree-like rings that are formed from the process of baking layers of pastry on top of each other as the ‘trunk’ is turned slowly on a spit over an open flame. Buchwald sells this famed type of cake in a variety of forms, either sliced and chocolate-covered, or in little round chunks the size of small tree stumps, packaged and sealed with the café’s gold emblem.

As you surreptitiously dab the crumbs from your plate and listen to the friendly chatter of the locals, you may find yourself smugly thinking back to all the anonymous cafés you’ve spent time in, their tables cluttered with computers, not a voice disturbing the monotony of clinking keys and glowing screens. Indeed Buchwald’s rich history and the aura of pride and personality in every bite is something most cafés only dream of. GP

Bartningallee 29, 10557; S Bellevue; www.konditorei-buchwald.de

Map: West F1