SPREE FUMEE — Restaurant in Berlin

Mitte’s newest dining contender, Spree Fumée, arrives with an unmistakable air of polish. The space is immaculately designed, contemporary yet warm, effortlessly stylish without veering into pretension. The staff, youthful but well-drilled, move with a confidence that belies the restaurant’s infancy. Service is swift, attentive, and refreshingly precise, setting the stage for an experience that, at first glance, seems destined for success.

The Barbary duck, a centrepiece of the menu, promises a rich and gamey indulgence but arrives overcooked, its inherent succulence lost to a cautious kitchen. A bird of such quality deserves reverence, a careful hand that allows its flavour to shine, here, it is betrayed by an excess of restraint.

The enoki mushrooms, entwined with entrecôte strips, intrigue on paper but falter in execution. There’s an expectation of umami depth, a play of textures between the delicate, almost ethereal enoki and the robust beef. Instead, the dish lands somewhere in the realm of the forgettable, lacking the seasoning and finesse needed to elevate it beyond its components.

The prawns, however, offer a glimmer of hope. Cooked with precision, they retain their natural sweetness and bite. Yet, as with much of the meal, they suffer from a lack of bold seasoning, a hesitation that leaves the dish teetering on the edge of brilliance without quite taking the leap.

Cocktails follow a similar trajectory. The ambition is evident, the ingredients well-chosen, but there is a tendency toward excess, too many elements competing for attention, resulting in drinks that feel busy rather than balanced. Even their names, rather than evoking intrigue, feel oddly generic, a missed opportunity to reinforce the restaurant’s identity.

Portion sizes are respectable, neither stingy nor overly generous. But when the bill arrives, a question lingers: does the experience justify the price? The setting is superb, the service faultless, but the food, while promising, lacks the finesse required to elevate Spree Fumée beyond aesthetics.

There is undeniable potential here. A lighter hand in the kitchen, a more restrained approach to the cocktail list, and this could become a true Mitte destination. But for now, Spree Fumée remains an elegant stage with an unfinished script, waiting for its...

Three stars is really a stretch here. A cool looking place that disappoints with absolutely flavorless food. I really wish I could say better things about our experience, - I love my neighborhood and every new restaurant in it - but while the quality of the ingredients certainly was there, the taste just didn’t deliver. Upon arrival we had been seated at the worst table of the house. Squeezed into a corner with part of the table taken up by extruding boat wall. The servers were nice enough to give us another table, but seated another couple at the same odd, tight place we had been in at first. The restaurant wasn’t at all full, so I don’t quite get why one would sit guests in such a cramped space when all over four-tops were empty. The chicken breast was unfortunately inedible, the entrecôte was completely unseasoned, and everything else was so small, one wondered how they can charge that much for it. I had a quite tasty cocktail. My opposite had a 0.1 glass of cheap red wine sold for €5. Not at all satisfied with the meal, we actually ordered a pizza to our home from inside the restaurant. That truly has never happened to us. We payed €70 for a bottle of water, two drinks, and miniature versions of bland food. I don’t think we...

We found this place through Google and were definitely interested since it had such great reviews and good looking (perhaps somewhat Instagram-friendly) food. Unfortunately when we arrived, we were barely acknowledged by the staff. When one of the staff members finally came up to us and the couple behind us we told him we had a 21:00 reservation. He then told us to wait and disappeared. We saw some other staff walking back and forth, and after about 15 minutes we overheard a group of four ask a waiter if he had forgotten about them. They told us they apparently had been waiting for an HOUR and were told 15-20 minutes (we saw no drinks on their tables or nothing that indicated that they were looked after during that time) Since the waiter we talked to was nowhere to be found and no one seemed to be bothered to give us any more information (and also the incredible heat inside), we decided we weren’t going to risk having to wait an hour as well and went somewhere else. Food looked nice, too bad we couldn’t taste it. Surprised and suspicious regarding the 4.9 out of 5 stars! Hopefully it was just...