HABEL am Reichstag - Berlin

Let me say I cannot remember the last time I gave one star and I have hundreds of reviews. I am also not a fussy restaurant goer. But the staff was just so unfriendly here.we had booked a meal with around fifty people. Obviously there was a set menu, as you cannot give fifty people an option. however, me and my colleague are vegetarian. When we mentioned this (the menu had chicken only) they were annoyed but said they could prepare ravioli. They then asked us how many vegetarians there would be but we didn't know that, this also annoyed the waiter. The starter was a nice and tasty gazpacho cold soup. The ravioli were very strange, they were sweet and tasted like they had lots of sugar in them. we asked what the filling was and the same waiter said "mascarpone". this is a soft cheese, but not sweet. It was not edible and we both didn't eat it. the waiter then got really offended and a bit rude. Pudding came and looked like a mousse. As mousse usually has gelatin in we didn't eat it but the waiter came in despair and why on earth did we not eat our pudding, we had to eat our pudding. We explained about being vegetarian and he said, it is vegetarian, I think it has cream in. We didn't like his attitude at all. He tried to bully us into eating our pudding. The place looked quite quirky, under a train rails. You could hear the trains go over the restaurant and the ceiling shook. The walls were covered with wine, but then again there was a radiator straight next to the wine, almost touching it, seemed a bit odd for a place that is specialized in good wine. There was also some fake grass decoration on top of the wine racks. I didn't mind the quirkiness, but I do not understand why a waiter would be so unprofessional and ruin their guest's experience of visiting his restaurant. Perhaps they should specify they only want meat eaters.

This restaurant has a really authentic feel to it. The food is excellent. I would particularly recumbent the chestnut soup if you can get it.

This is a well-known local resaturant on a side street just a couple of minutes from the busy area of Branderburg gate and Unter den Linden. I have visited Habel am Reichstag with a friend on a Friday evening. Despite having Christmas parties in several rooms, we got immediate attention, professional help and service. The restaurant has a modern and elegant interior with neutral and dark brown shades. The menu is short, but well planned with seasonal dishes. The wine list is long with German, Italian, French and even Turkish items. The soups were great: the pumpkin soup arrived with an orange infused oil. The rutabaga soup with white truffle foam was a surprise. Creamy, harmonious, yet intense and interesting. An unexpected transformation of a long neglected root vegetable used previously in wartimes and need. The well prepared pike perch pieces rested on a pumpkin risotto. Beetroot foam added colour and taste to the dish. A fresh, fruity and vibrant white wine (cuvee from chardonnay and emir) was a perfect match.

Look through my 100+ reviews and you'll see I try to find the positives because most places want to give you a good experience. But this might be a struggle. Firstly, we didn't have luck on our side. The place was dominated by three v large parties taking over the three large dining rooms that this restaurant has. One room even featured a murder mystery style cabaret with people dressed in 1920s costume. So when the four of us walked in, frankly, the reaction from the staff was far from the 'warm welcome' boasted about on their website. In fact I got the impression they had enough to do with all these large groups (the Norwegians next door comprised of 30 diners alone) and didn't need a table of four coming in and complicating matters. Because the main restaurant was already completely taken over by one group all that was left was a miserable collection of small tables on a mezzanine level near the coat racks. It was basically a corridor between the kitchen and the main room. Waiters left dirty plates and bottles nearby, the lighting was harsh and bright and immediately made all of us think of leaving. And I'm only sorry we didn't get up there and then. Our waitress was very pleasant but a bit forgetful and clearly rushed off her feet. When we eventually did get menus I couldn't believe how few choices there were. Starters were either soups or a couple of salad options. The usual Choices for mains - goose, duck, perch, steak, schnitzel, veal were all there but the execution was poor. The soup though tasty was luke warm. The duck and goose came with mounds of over-cooked overly sweet cabbage and inedible dumplings. The schnitzel however was good - but came with some greasy potatoes. Whilst the veal cheeks - something that should be slow cooked to break down the structure of this cut of meat was hard and gelatinous. My fellow diners were by now all rather depressed. At one point a bottle of wine we ordered was brought close to the table then the waiter was distracted by a request from one of the large groups and that was it - we sat watching a bottle and glasses for five minutes wondering if we should go and get it ourselves. We declined dessert but was then 'offered' schapps which we took to mean 'on the house'. No menu was offered or pricing and we had already asked for the bill. So it came as a bit of a surprise that they appeared on the bill. We decided to pay up and leave, never to return. This place might have been good once, and perhaps it was more bad luck than the norm. But every customer should be made to feel important. And in this Habel am Reichstag failed miserably.

Nice food and good red wine! Interiour is interesting and the waitres polite. Every now and than you will hear the train pasing by so the ceiling will shake :)! Cool stuff!