Café Botanico — Restaurant in Berlin

Short review: While the location is beautiful and the food was tasty, we will never go back because of the service.

Long version: We had a really disappointing experience at this restaurant. We had a reservation for 8 pm on 26.07.2024, and I arrived on time. I stood in the middle of the dining room for several minutes without any acknowledgment from the staff. There were four waiters: one occupied at the counter with a paying customer, and the other three just running around. Not once did any of them greet me, make eye contact, or say, "I'll be right with you."

After waiting a while, one of the waiters finally asked me to wait a bit longer. The waiter at the counter, once done with the paying customer, didn't attend to me. Several minutes later, he finally looked up and asked about my reservation. He found our reservation and told me the table wasn’t ready, without any apologies, and then, when he saw I was upset, asked with an attitude, "Is that okay?"

What happened next was unbelievable. The waiter approached a couple who seemed to be done with their meal and essentially asked them to leave so he could give us their table. They left shortly after, and the staff began cleaning and setting up the table for us. Mind you, it was already well into our reservation time. The same waiter started preparing the table but was replaced by a waitress midway through, who then took orders from a table next to ours instead of calling us over. We were left standing in the middle of the dining room until we stopped the waitress and asked if the table was ready. She acted surprised and said, "Oh, I didn't know YOU were waiting for it," even though we were the only ones standing and waiting.

Once seated, we ordered drinks and a plate of three appetizers to share. One of my friends chose a burrata, while the other friend and I ordered main dishes (pasta). Our drinks arrived after a long wait, but they forgot the beer. Then, they served the burrata and one appetizer instead of the plate of three we ordered. My friend had to go to the counter to ask for the beer.

The appetizers were mostly salad-like and shouldn't have taken long to prepare, but we still had to wait. We hoped the other two appetizers would come later, but they never did. After finishing the one appetizer and the burrata, the waitress asked if we enjoyed it, and we mentioned the missing appetizers. She looked surprised, apologized, and asked if we still wanted them, but at this point, we just wanted our main dishes.

The main courses were really tasty, which was the only positive part of the evening, but they also took a while to arrive. By the time we finished, we were ready to leave as quickly as possible. One of my friends tried to get the staff's attention to get our bill, but no one noticed, so we decided to go to the counter to pay.

The final straw was the billing process. They didn't use a tablet or a proper cash register. The waitress wrote everything down on a piece of paper that pretended to be a receipt and had to check the prices in the menu. The good thing is you can pay by card.

It's a shame because the restaurant has a nice concept with its own permaculture garden for herbs and plants and a cute terrace. The food was good, but the service ruined the entire experience. We won’t...

What I really love is finding interesting, unique places with real, tasty food! For example, yesterday I visited the beautiful @Cafe Botanico in Neukölln.

This is a small cozy restaurant with a wonderful garden with herbs - more than 100 types -, vegetables and fruits that chef cook Octavio uses in the kitchen with italian elements.

Martin (owner and ideological inspirer) decided 2013 to realize his idea with a garden where the plants grow as naturally as possible, "like in the forest" and you will be able to use greens during the whole year.

The guests can take a walk in the garden, see how different plants grow and also have an inspiring talk with Martin.

The restaurant's menu is small, seasonal, using herbs from the garden.

We tried wild herbs salad (5 €), delicious bruschetta with baked vegetables (7 €) and vegan risotto with roots and orange.

They also have homemade pasta - for example with batarda (14 €). The menu includes some desserts and delicious teas (3 €), wine, several cocktails and of course coffee (1.5 € for espresso)

#happyfood_travel highly recommended this place as one of the most cozy in Berlin. Ideal for a quiet romantic dinner, a cup of coffee or tea...

As a vegan: The wine was great, the starter was great. Unfortunately they took one hour (it wasn't that busy) to serve our main dish. Unfortunately they put cheese on the pastas despite us ordering 2 vegetarian pastas and specifically asking them not to put cheese of any kind on it, just for good measure. Then they told us it would take another 15 minutes to remake the dishes without cheese, which we accepted. 30 minutes later we asked for the bill, after they again failed to fulfil the order (they told us another "2 minutes"). We had a great evening regardless, but we came there really hungry and 90 minutes was our breaking point. If you go there, bring lots of time. The food might be worth it.

1 / 5 for failing to complete an order of pasta in under an hour and still f*ing up the specifics. I...