Alaska Bar — Restaurant in Berlin

I used to love this bar and celebrated several of my birthdays here. The owners who used to run the bar personally in the beginning were super sweet and the vegan tapas are so good and each time there is something new on the menu.

Unfortunately, the bar is extremely crowded nowadays, especially on weekends, the staff seems completely overwhelmed with their tasks and some of them do not continue with the good vibes of the owners. I got a table on the terrace on a Friday night with a friend and we were continuously ignored by the waiters running in and out. I got all of my three drinks inside myself, as the waiters had no time to stop by our table. After getting our first round of drinks, we had to wait for about half an hour to place the order for the food. Before, I tried to get the attention of one of the waiters, waving and him and smiling - and he copied my waving, putting an annoyed face.

Later on, I asked him if there was something wrong with me waving at him and how he preferred me to let him know that we were ready to order. He said he was only the runner and not there to take orders. It wasn't possible for me to see that, as he stood at other tables talking to the customers. I worked in gastronomy myself for eight years and of course some customers are unbearable, especially when they are arrogant. But I wasn't acting in an arrogant way, but I made a regular and friendly sign. What I know for sure is that making a mockery of customers is totally not acceptable, whether you're a waiter or a runner.

I understand they were under stress, still he could have simply told me that he was not taking orders instead of aping me. The weird thing is that they always have abundant time to chat with their Spanish friends hanging around the bar. So please also take your time to talk to other customers in a friendly and respectful way.

I like places because of their atmposphere. When they spread a negative atmosphere, I don't go there. That's why I...

TLDR Overhyped spot with mediocre food and repulsive service Alaska once was one of my favourite vegan food spots in Berlin and over the years I went there multiple times and generally enjoyed myself. It's atmospheric and has a nice vibe to it, so I don't mind slow service and dishes coming at different times. The food I got yesterday was subpar for the price, which can happen when the place is packed and the kitchen is overwhelmed. The appalling thing for me was the treatment from the staff after I objected to pay for one dish. I had the artichoke hearts with feta (7,9€), the patatas bravas (5,8€), the churros with chocolate (4,5€) and a soft drink (3€). The feta was nice, but the artichokes out of the can tasted dry and a bit off. The potatoes were barely salted and overly oily. Nothing noteworthy so far. The churros - which I had before and liked them - where overfried, meaning hard and brittle on the outside and dry and shrivelled on the inside. After taking a bite I told the waitress they were inedible and asked her to take them off the bill which she instantely refused. Afterwards I had to endure 20min of theatrics including blaming my appetite (I had asked whether they offered a small portion of dessert), accusations that I was swindling my way out of paying and being told the blatant lie that nobody in 7 years had ever lamented the food. The culmination was my very own Lion King moment where I was told to go and 'never return'. Having worked in gastronomy myself it is customary and nothing exceptional to take a kitchen mishap off the bill, offer a free alternative or remake it at once. The staff acted as if I was unreasonable and they were fuming and affronted as if I had offended them personally. After looking at other reviews I am not surprised, the owner's responses are abusive so it only makes sense the staff is unprofessional as well. Never have I had such a poor...

This is going to be long, so the silver line is- bad service, average and greasy food.

Our experience was pretty interesting over here I'd say- It started with the fact that once we arrived we were told they don't have a reservation under our name, even tho we did reserve a table a week ahead. This is something that might happen, we are humans after all, but instead of apologizing for making a mistake, they started arguing and blaming us for not making a reservation. We were basically asking to tell us once a table will be available inside because we didn't want to sit outside with all the smokers, but they continue to argue with us instead, one of the employee even laughed at us for saying we came especially with a cab to this place and two of the employees (I think one of them might be the owner) started to speak in Spanish in front of us and rolling their eyes. When we finally started to order, the service was so slow and it took forever to get our drinks and food. We asked the waitress to clean the dirty table and she swiped it with a dirty cloth. In terms of food, nothing special to write about, pretty greasy (my friend got a stomachache afterwards because of that) and basically average. The cocktails were nice. I would summarize that Berlin is a great city for vegans, there are so many great places with excellent food and service, so you shouldn't compromise on average food and very poor service (and this is backed up by their replies to bad reviews on Google, so you can give that a look and see for yourselves how bad they are with customers). I've attached the calls history just to show, yet again, that we did in fact booked a table. I would recommend the owner to actually read the bad reviews and learn how to improve instead of attacking everyone, and maybe even have a service...