Berlin’s Luxury Food Halls

No matter how advanced our services-driven economy becomes, food retail will always remain immensely profitable particularly when backed by a trusted brand.

A glance at the richest country in the world’s Rich List proves this, with three separate Waltons (the Walmart family) in the top 10. Europe’s own richest country – Germany - is no different, with the secretive Albrecht brothers and their enormous Aldi fortune, dominating the top tier. Karl Albrecht has long been Germany’s richest man with his brother Theo (who passed away in 2010) just behind him. They’re kept in cosy company by Dieter Schwarz (controlling Lidl and Kaufland) and the Oetker family (frozen food and dairy empire).

Other than immense wealth, the one thing that unites them all is their devotion to mass-discount shopping. The Albrecht brothers discovered this winning formula in the aftermath of World War II, when a 1948 law wiping out the lucrative black market allowed them to launch the new concept in their supermarket's: minimal inventory, skeleton staff, little or no decoration and all goods sold directly out of their delivery box and pallet. Judging from the discount supermarket’s 40% control of the German market (as compared to say 8% in the UK), domestic consumers clearly trust that the products sold therein have no premiums added to their price tag. If the laughable attempt at ‘own-brand’ foreign goods in these discount supermarkets or the garish Lidl sign on every corner is grinding you down, come and enjoy some of Berlin’s high-end food providers - the produce sources for trade rather than the usual opulent food halls of department stores or small local delis.

FrischeParadies

This black monolith surprises when it emerges from a series of nondescript warehouses in the industrial backwaters of Friedrichshain. Even if it’s essentially a sourcing market for trade, this location wears its epicurean tastes firmly on its sleeve, a matt black coat daubing its sleek lines throughout, and a girder-sized El Bulli cookbook standing guard at the entrance to alert the unwary amateur as to what they are entering. Primarily geared towards a fustier French cuisine, there is a vast assortment of tinned produce, shellfish and prepared vegetables as well as an extensive section of esoteric spice mixes. There’s an enormous chiller section of stacked vacuum-packed meats, from entire sides of Wagyu fillet, sacks of livers and all sorts of spatch-cocked game birds; plenty of ham legs from the popular areas of Serrano, Parma and San Daniele are available in whole, halves or quarters (though sadly only pre-sliced packs of Iberico).

The fish section is majestic, with a charming blue and white tile mosaic wall illustrating the kingdom of fishes from the emperor Bluefin down to the weeniest sardine footsoldier. It’s always alarming to see the majestic Bluefin so readily on sale though, with it being so criminally near to total extinction. There is a chilled room for fruit and vegetables, with a beautiful range of fresh herbs; South-East Asian offerings include the reviled fishwort whose stench requires it to come in a sealed box. The self-service element adds to the solemnity of the shop, all products pre-sliced and packed, not as mere ‘treat’ food but as basic building-block ingredients, no matter the price tag. So don’t come here for the eye candy - this should be the first port of call for those who simply derive pleasure from the transformative act of cooking.

Rogacki

Rogacki is more or less the diametrical opposite of FrischeParadies in terms of a food experience: beaming attendants in green, monogrammed uniforms stand to attention behind row after row of sparkling vitrines stuffed with all manner of prepared produce. The Rogacki store was founded in 1928 in Wedding, where current owner Dietmar Rogacki’s grandfather would pull his cart of smoked fish to the Alexanderplatz market. He moved to the current location near Bismarckstrasse in 1932 when he was offered an old open-air steel foundry. Converting it into a smokery, the shop added a cured meat section, pickled fish and eventually, in the 1960s, a roof, completing today’s grand façade. Standing apart in a city with poor fish availability, the fish counter glistens with a wealth of sea produce, from beer-bottle sized prawns plucked from the Indian Ocean to hefty chunks of Conger eel and lots of large tanks teeming with the live freshwater trout and perch so beloved of Northern Germans. There’s even a quaint tank of lobsters, each in separate quarters with a large clay pot to nestle in.

The smoked and pickled fish is the mainstay though, with little need for experimentation - as Mr. Rogacki explains, there are only a set number of oily fish species suitable for such treatment. Specialties include Bratherings (fried and brined herring), Rollmops (pickled herrings rolled around gherkin) and Senfgurken (white gherkins from Spreewald). Smoked eels, whole and filleted, entire salmons, hot and cold smoked under a variety of woods line the display and an overflowing tray of miniature Kiel sprats encased in their golden foil-like skin appear almost as gift chocolates. Best though, are the multitude of standing tables dotted around, where burly Charlottenburg labourers rub shoulders with blue-rinsed West Berlin mesdames at lunch-time, hunched over steaming plates of Blutwurst (blood sausage) with mash and sauerkraut or Schweinhaxe (roast pork knuckle) with one of the store’s assorted potato salads. The reasonably priced produce is made with loving care, and the place is a charming shrine to a way of German life oft-forgotten in today’s Berlin.

Mitte Meer

Attempts to leech off the Hamburger Banhof’s cultural cache didn’t come to much in the ‘regenerated’ warehouse area behind it: Mitte Meer had a shortlived outlet there. Thankfully, there are still three other locations for the bulk sale supermarket, which, as its name suggests, deals mostly in Spanish, Italian and some French products. No slavish traditionalism here, the imaginative wine selection regularly features 10% discount weekends on trendy regions like Spain’s Ribera Del Duero and Portugal’s unique grape varieties. The supermarket also vends large, well-priced drums of cold-extracted, first pressing extra virgin olive oil from single Spanish estates for around 13-20 euros. All the fish and meats are frozen, with the usual bulging sacks of sardines, as well as other restaurant classics such as swordfish; but the charcuterie and cheeses are kept in sealed chiller rooms, with a large assortment of different grades of chorizo, from sweet to spicy, for cooking or made from the highly prized acorn-fed black Iberico pigs.

The cheeses are mostly functional - chunks of parmesan, grana padano and pecorino, again vacuum-packed in differing grades and weight, but there is also an interesting selection of cow’s milk cheeses from Mahon in Minorca. It’s not just fine ingredients on offer, either. Mite Meer have all sorts of practical products standard to Spanish kitchens, including ‘Royal’ branded Crème Caramel powder and large tubs of powdered Pimentón de la Vera (smoked paprika). Their prices are below the supermarkets on a huge range of dried De Cecco pasta, covering lots of rare varieties seldom seen outside Italy and with fridges full of fresh, filled tortellinis, raviolis and gnocchis, all doughy bases are covered. With an espresso bar situated at the exit, Mitte Meer makes for a surprisingly pleasant shopping experience. If combined with trips to specialist providers, fresh produce from markets and basics from the chain discounters, you can bypass any need for the occasional trip to a regular supermarket.

Venue Information

Mitte Meer

Mitte Meer, Gotlandstr. 6-10 10439 Berlin (030 4467 4990, www.mitte-meer.de). Sbahn, U2 Schoenhauser Allee. Open Mon-Sat 9am-8pm.

FrischeParadies

FrischeParadies, Hermann-Blankenstein-Str. 48 10249 Berlin (030 390 8150, www.frischeparadies.de). U5 Frankfurter Allee / Sbahn Storkower Str. Open 9am-8pm Mon-Fri, 8am-4pm Sat.

Rogacki

Rogacki, Wilmersdorfer Straße 145-46 10585 Berlin (030 343 8250, www.rogacki.de). U7 Bismarck Straße. Open 9am-6pm Mon-Wed; 9am-7pm Thur; 8am-7pm Fri; 8am-4pm Sat.