jaja — Restaurant in Berlin

Sad to say that the time we spent here was a huge dissapointment. My boss had recommended this to me before my trip to Berlin knowing what I like and love in establishments, given I also work in a natural wine bar and have a love for gastronomic food. I can't find a way to put this into a coherent story so I'm just going to sum this up. when I got there my partner was a bit later. I had a small communication error about the use of a french word to describe wine, this is seemingly trivial but the waiter in question didn't speak to us the entire evening following this except for about five words. This after uttering the legendary words "I'm not french". The wines are mostly french though and in our opinion a regular word since we're from the Netherlands and not french either. only one of the dishes was explained, and this was while my partner was using the restroom. the wines were not explained, it was more of a inaudible monologue by the waiter. Those monologues took him about 10 seconds and then he'd be off again. also seemingly trivial was the fact that our dishes were'nt garnished to completion. We got a hold of this matter when we saw the same dishes being served to the table next to us about 4 minutes after we had finished ours. I wouldn't make a deal about this if we'd been served with a different attitude. when we are here anyway I can also talk about how sad our main course was. Also something I wouldn't make a big deal about regularly because taste can differ, but damn this dish was just blanched zucchini with "leafs" as the waiter put it, and some smoked fish. Really not what I expected. after we had finished our dessert, the plates were taken without a word, no question if we wanted to have anything else or if we'd enjoyed our meal, and we just sat there for 15 minutes with empty glasses, before asking for the bill. During this time of waiting the waiter was just standing behind the bar. Doing some stuff but not serving people. after paying the bill I didn't feel right leaving without saying something. When I have a bad experience I never leave a bad review, I just talk to the staff because I as wait staff would prefer that too. You will have chance to reflect before future customers visit your place. The waiter left during our payment to help someone else which made us wait for a few minutes. When he came back I said "I must be honest with you and say that I'm pretty disappointed" he asked me why and I explained most of the stuff above, I didn't speak about the food as stated before this can be a taste thing. He told me that the dishwashers had been broken that evening and that they had a hectic evening "everything went wrong". I told him that I can understand that, and if that would have been so they could have stated that earlier so we could change our expectations. This led him to tel us that he was "sorry for us" (in not an empathic way just snarky mostly) and to promptly walk off.

This already rattled us, it made us feel very undervalued as guests, especially considering the amount of money I had just paid them. And as a cherry on top the other waiter had been talking and laughing with a table for the entire time we'd been waiting for service, paid, had the conversation, and left.

Long story short. I wont reccomend this to anyone I love, maybe an enemy out of spite but that would be petty so I'm still in...

JaJa is by far the most well known place in Berlin amongst natural wines lovers. It was mentioned in wine books, wine magazines and numerous reviews all across the web.

Is it worth the hype? - Stong YES!!

What's so special about it? - It was opened in 2016 with outstanding selection of natural wines hand picked by the founders. Ownership changed hands in a few years, but the concept remains the same.

Most of the wines are French, but you will also find true gems from other wine regions. Don't expect flashing only famous labels, but rather be open to new discoveries. Trust the palate of the buying team and let your host guide you through.

There is no wine list existing as such. It's all about the journey hosts are taking you to. Engage in dialogue and let them know your preference, what are you up to tonight. Than relax and let the magic happen. Deep cellar of JaJa won't disappoint.

Hosts have their own charm, deep knowledge of the wines they sell and endless empathy.

Menu is simple in a family style. All dishes are meant to be shared. It's impossible to go wrong with any choice. Everything is soooo delicious!

We started with pork rilette, sourdough and onsen egg. Paired with fizzy pét-nat by glass with Chinon based blend.

We followed with bottle of great Chinon Blanc and paired with Smoked char, potato & habanero. It comes on a sourdough, warm boneless fish smoked seasoned with spicy oil and garnished with onions and coriander.

Beef cheeks put a wide smile on our faces. So tender!! Our wine choice was juicy Cabernet Franc with burst of bright fruits and peppery flavour.

The place has cozy atmosphere where guests together with hosts create this unique vibe!

Reservation is highly...

🚨warning - extremely bad service 🚨

Briefly: disappointed.

Now in details: Jaja has been on my list for a couple years, and I was really excited to finally get an opportunity to wine and dine there.

Food: mediocre. Bread tastes like Zeit für Brot, cold, not crusty and does not taste very fresh. From 5 plates I liked only one. Meals are pretentious and missing flavours. Feels like they tried to make an attempt to do something modern and exquisite but didn’t achieve what they meant to. What did the chief try to say with this food?

Wine: has large variety of wines with a cheeky price starting from 35€ per bottle, major part is around 60-70€ though.

And my favourite, service: I wanted to order a bottle and was seeking for consultation. The guy came back with 4 bottles ( 1 of them clearly didn’t match my description of having mineral notes, it was instead almost like a cider) and he provided 0 (!!!) description. Not where’s it from, nothing about grapes or notes. And this is for a bottle that costs 55€. I’m stunned. The same story with food, they didn’t say what it is when they served nor they asked how was it when we were finished. Like 0 attention to customers. I wonder if those people even enjoy working there? Why it feels like it costs them a fortune to make an attempt to be nice and friendly? I understand Berlin is edgy and stuff, but my guys, I bring not small money to your restaurant, so why not just make an effort.

I have left a review directly to Jaja, however, here people still mention all the same feedback, so I’m not sure Jaja mgmt works with customers feedback...