Eat the World food tour of Kreutzberg, Berlin

It’s usually not the best idea to do a walking tour in 35-degree heat, but in this case compensation came in the form of ice cream. And that wasn’t all — chocolate brownie, apple pie, döner kebab, lentil soup, börek, and a haloumi pita pocket also helped.

Eat the World runs food tours in several cities throughout Germany, and we joined the Berlin Kreutzberg one on a sweltering Saturday.

Our guide Leoni greeted the eleven of us in the group with a quick explanation of what to expect, and gave us napkins and brochures with detailed information about the route and the various establishments we’d be visiting along the way. She also told us a little about the history of Berlin in general and Kreutzberg in particular; then we crossed the road to our first stop, a Sudanese imbiss restaurant, where wooden tables clustered under welcome sun umbrellas, and we ate pita pockets stuffed with salad and slices of fried halloumi cheese.

At the Indian restaurant which was our next stop, we were served bowls of lentil and coconut soup, and we were starting to get worried that we wouldn’t be able to eat everything — the portions were so generous! Luckily the chocolate brownie at the next stop was more reasonably sized, and this was followed by an extremely refreshing scoop of ice cream each.

The börek that we were served next is understandably famous, as was the portion of döner kebab at Germany’s first-ever kebab restaurant. We finished our tour with a slice of apple cake in the garden of a pleasant bakery in Orienplatz.

I was really impressed with the balance of sweet and savoury flavours, as well as with the speed of the tour. We sat down at four of the stops and ate outside at the other three; drinks were available for purchase at all of them. Leoni had explained that drinks weren’t included right at the start of the tour, and most people bought something to drink at the sit-down stops: a bottle of water at the imbiss, a soft drink at the Indian restaurant, a tea at the döner cafe, and something cool at the bakery. You probably need to budget an extra €5-10 on top of the price of the tour (€30) for drinks; you’ll certainly want at least one, especially if the temperature’s as high for you as it was for us.

As well as tasting our way through Kreutzberg, we also learned about it — Leoni explained a little about the architecture, canals, squares, and past and present population makeups. It was a fascinating (and tasty) introduction to the neighbourhood and I’d highly recommend it for visitors to Berlin, regardless of how hot the weather is.

[box]Eat the World tours last about three hours and cost €30.[/box]