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Maître Philippe

WILMERSDORF

Set on a slightly sleepy cobblestone street near the magnificent buildings surrounding West Berlin’s grand Ludwigkirchplatz, Maître Philippe draws visitors in with its sophisticated name and mouth-watering window displays – then socks them in the nostrils with the strong stench of cheese.

Perhaps this is simply a test: after all, the true bon vivant will know what good cheese smells like, and realise he’s stumbled upon a rare treasure trove. Once you’ve passed, the friendly proprietor (or his daughter) will guide you through the selections, perhaps showing off the comprehensive cooling system, which keeps the shop at a lightly air-conditioned temperature and sprays a constant fine mist of ionised water to create the right storage conditions for the ashy Selles-sur-Cher and creamy blue-green Roqueforts.

There’s more: aside from an array of cured meats and wines, the shop’s second room holds a veritable art gallery of stacked dry goods boxes, jars and tins – some adorned with more traditional flowery images and fonts, others a bit more playful, like those from the Portuguese José Gourmet, with cartoon fish that appear slightly terrified, as if about to be eaten. These are interspersed with bundles of herbs (rosemary, sage, verbena) that are so beautiful in their simplicity, it is easy to imagine they’ve been taken down from drying on the rafters of an old barn earlier that same day.

Aside from a small and impressively edited wine selection, Maître Philippe also stocks hard-to-find ingredients like Tonka beans from Venezuela, their scent a beguiling mixture of vanilla, coffee and smoke; and the rare Verjus, a green grape extract essential to some French and Persian dishes.

The beauty of Maître Philippe is in its all-encompassing attention to detail. Not a product graces its shelves that you wouldn’t want to show off on yours. Monsieur Philippe obviously knows this, just as he knows that sometimes the right item, like that first overwhelming whiff of cheese, can be unfamiliar, enchanting and inspiring. GP

Emser Str. 42, 10719; U Spichernstr.; www.maitrephilippe.de

Map: West C4