Orania.Restaurant & Orania.Bar — Restaurant in Berlin

I‘ve actually sympathized with going to the Orania Restaurant for at least a couple of years. I guess the trigger was one of the very first articles I‘ve read about the „Peking/Kreuzberg Duck Menu“ and the (intrinsic) stopper probably was the restaurant being a „hotel restaurant“. I‘ve to admit, I gave the place a first check by visiting the Bar for some drinks after a stroll with a friend on Oranienstreet the other day. And guess what, our Bar experience was amazing! So the Orania Restaurant became my very first choice for this year’s birthday dinner, to finally go for the „mysterious“ Kreuzberg Duck (X-Bergs answer to the Peking Duck)! Not sure if there’s a word cut here and therefore giving the executive summary first: w/o question… one of the top 5 culinary experiences in Berlin for me over the past 21years I‘d the pleasure of living & enjoying many-many wonderful & inspirational culinary events here. No way of mentioning even some of them here w/o dissing/missing others. As well I‘d the opportunity to run some wonderful & mystic places as part of an awesome team myself. Ok. Let’s cut the marketing blabla. Listen folks, as a trained chef, a foodie & service lover by DNA as well as someone who fully gets, reads & understands the challenges of the moment, this experience was simply „Extraordinary“! The four course Kreuzberg Duck menu has been one of the top notch culinary & value4money experiences in Berlin EVER! On top of that the food was accompanied by an out of ordinary level of service. I‘d guess, that over the 4 courses we‘d had a minimum of 10 different service & chef people at the table. Might sound stressful, but believe me, it was a pure pleasure to get to know every single one of them, especially because of their so much away from average commitment & positive energy which came with each & everyone! Folks, hands on my heart, I paid the full bill and this feedback is 100% personal, not paid at all and simply based on my beliefs to „give back“! Before ending, my wife’s favorite part of a menu is the dessert (- yeahhh, she’s a true sweetheart 😍) and even here, these crazy folks not only send their „TV style Pattissière“ to our table, but she also dropped some freaking amazing, no chi-chi & simply really tasty desserts. Ok. I get it. It’s seems far too much for an unpaid review, but hej, how much crap, average, overrated and simply „not ever come back shit“ have you been going through!? So I thought, I‘d might want to allow myself to get really carried away for once 😉! Again, very personal, very much of a Monday evening and very-very slightly infused by birthday emotions. Simply fueled by a very special experience, which I believe needs to be shared!...

As a guest of the hotel, we wanted to spend the first evening in the hotel restaurant. So we booked a table in the late evening.

First we were sat at a table next to a family with two small children, were one of them was very dissatisfied and noisy. Fair enough - kids will be kids. But as we were planning to use the whole evening and a lot of money we asked for a different table. There were no one available. We asked, if we could sit in the bar instead (there were other people sitting and eating in the bar). That was perfect for the staff.

We ordered the food (seven in total) but, they left before we could order anything to drink. After 10—15 minutes we got a hold of the waiter and got something to drink.

The whole evening we were not getting service unless we several time asked the waiter for more to drink. At one point we had food but empty glasses for 20 minutes with only 7 people in the bar. That's expected by a low quality restaurant or bar, but not a high rated hotel restaurant and bar.

My boyfriend asked for a craft beer in a bottle, that he had seen been served at another table. He knows the brewery and asked if they have beers from them. He gets one without asking him what sort of beer he want's. Later on it turns out the they had more then one kind. Why not ask, do you want an ipa or pilsner? It doesn't take that long to ask...

I asked at some point what type of gin they had. He said over 30 and left again. After 10 minutes he came back: "you wanted a gin and tonic?". The short answer was no. But if he had stopped and asked me, if he could help me, he would have sold me a cocktail with gin.

At some point the waiter pops by and said sorry for the delay of the food. We are both thinking that it's not the food, but our empty glasses that's a big problem. I tell him, that if we can get something more to drink, it perfectly fine. He tells me that the wine is on him for the delay of the food.

After end evening we got a receipt that had 4 glasses of white wine, when I only had tree (I ate a hole meal without wine). He changed it, even though it was clear he thought I had four. But boy, I would have had at least 5 glasses if they had paid attention. Ohhh yeah what happened to the free glass of wine? Don't say it if you are going to charge it anyway...

It was clear that some guests was more important than us. They got hugs and a lot of attention. That's perfectly understandable, you should always take care of regulars, but can we at least get something to drink? We are not asking for a long conversation, just proper service.

The food was fine, but not amazing. The service was...

It’s hard to imagine that some of the comments here haven’t been massaged a bit; maybe the Orania.Enterprise is working the social influencer crowd or something, but as the Germans say, this place is “mehr shine als sein”, or that it looks better than it is. No doubt someone spent a small fortune on decor. But that seems to have left them short-funded on the rest of the important aspects that make a bar work. I take particular umbrage at the comment that this place has great cocktails, with which I couldn’t have agreed less.

I sat at the bar at the advice of the hotel front of house receptionist for a meal. Turns out, they don’t serve dinner at the bar, a clear mistake in my opinion as a solo business traveler. But during the 30min it took for the barman to check if that was the case, I was able to watch how the bar staff worked as a team and it was truly a spectacle to wonder at.

First off, the staff have no “game face”, openly showing dismay at the fact that one of the beer taps “hasn’t worked in weeks” as one server after another attempted to use it. The bar manager, a blonde woman with glasses, felt overwhelmed, running back and force and creating more whirlwind than effective management as staff seemed too paralysed around her to contribute.

€14 for a cocktail is too much in Berlin for it not to taste good, and 15min is too long to wait after ordering a drink that is three ingredients poured over ice. Clearly, finer points like the bar asking “how is your drink?” we’re completely lost on the bar team, who couldn’t keep up with the orders on a Friday evening as it were, despite a “cocktail” list of two cocktails which could arguably have been “mixed drinks”...this is not the spot to find a “mixologist”, and I’d stick to beer/wine.

That said, the space is lovely and they do a great job of hosting evening music events. My advice? Have dinner and drinks someplace else first nearby, there are numerous superior options, and then come here after to listen to some music...