Zur letzten Instanz — Restaurant in Berlin

I recently traveled to Berlin with my brother, and we made reservations to dine here based upon its reputation for being the oldest establishment in Berlin serving traditional German food. In fairness, the two appetizers were very good (8-9/10). The pork knuckle, as mentioned in a prior review, was badly overcooked — visually impressive, but dry, tough and parts of it were inedible. However, the real problem was the occurrence of 2 notable issues that stand out as exceptionally poor service (and willfully so) — enough to warn other Non-German travelers and recommend against patronage.

As background, I had severely injured my low back several days prior such that I was unable to sit down due to severe muscle spasms. The only way to permit dining was to kneel on one knee and keep the other leg flexed — so I was literally genuflecting at the table throughout dinner as the only tolerable body position to eat in. As such, when we were seated in the outside patio, I picked up a well-used outdoor cushion from the outside bench in front of the restaurant to take with me to the table. I did this in front of our waiter who was seating & serving us, and also pulled out the chair from the table so that I could position myself on one knee on the outdoor cushion. I did this in front of our waitstaff who seated/served us, and explained my back injury and my inability to sit due to back spasms/injury. No issues, and several minutes later this waiter reappeared to take our beer, appetizer and entree orders. Approximately 30 minutes later, after we had finished our 2 appetizers and were awaiting the entree, another waiter whom we had never met angrily approached our table and asked what I was doing kneeling on the cushion with one knee instead of sitting. I explained my back injury again, but this waiter began to repeatedly demand who had given me permission etc. My response was that I had transparently taken that cushion in front of staff and explained the situation when being seated — at no time was there any indication from anyone that this was a concern. I further clarified that I certainly meant no disrespect whatsoever. Keep in mind that during this brief interaction of 5 minutes or so, this waitstaff was aggressively raising his voice and physically posturing as if he wanted to fight. So, after he abruptly left in a huff, I decided to try and de-escalate — carefully/painfully standing up, dusting off the bottom of the pillow to ensure there was no damage nor visible blemish/dirt (there were none) and then limping back to the front of the restaurant where I returned the pillow to it’s original outdoor bench location. I then came back to my table and proceeded to resume my kneeling position on the ground throughout the rest of our remaining meal. When our original waiter returned, he offered no comment related to what occurred — though he was clearly aware of the incident which caused a stir for the entire outside patio area. The angry unhinged waiter (his photo from their website is uploaded in this review) continued to periodically reappear at the edge of the patio to glare at our table in a threatening fashion for the next 40 minutes or so until we left. Ultimately, the cherry on top of this experience is that when our bill arrived the waitstaff had preselected a 20% tip for our meal. In conclusion — despite being transparent with my physical injury and using an outdoor pillow in front of staff when being seated, this apparently caused unintended offense to someone else inside the establishment 30 minutes after the fact. In all honestly, it appeared as though we were profiled as English speaking non-Germans, and someone with a conscious bias/prejudice decided to look for a reason to unload. Highly unprofessional and unwarranted. Secondly, despite feeling the need to take a moral stand against ‘disrespectful tourists,’ the restaurant staffs’ ethical resolve faded quickly when it came time to...

We had a reservation but got a table in front of the toilet (most tables were not taken while we arriving)...?????? The attached pic would show how close it is to the toilet. Image there’re only two tables of persons in the hall (FYI seems only Asians in this hall, most guests were in the outer hall), but all sit next to the toilet.

This is quite strange. We never experienced before. We didn’t have lunch there due to this reason, though we really looked forward to.

We arrived on time, and our name is relatively early in booking slots (I saw it on a large book with a lot of names). The restaurant was not full. We asked first if we could sit in the outer hall but were refused. Then we saw the table too close to the toilet and asked if we could move to another seats, a bit farther from the toilet, and were refused again. As I said before, the restaurant was not full and there’re only two tables of guests (including us) in this hall.

We asked 2 times to change a table (still a table for 2, not for a bigger one) but told not possible because of too many reservations. I couldn’t understand... This seat is usually for walk-in guests at peak time. Or it’s just we’re travelers and it’s the way they treat non-local guests. Or maybe we should have remarked we don’t want this kind of seats when booking a table in THIS restaurant.

In addition, when arriving we waited till another group of guests (arrived later than us)were led to their seats (of course far away from toilets).

BTW, when booking, they replied very fast. This is the 1 star for...

When we arrived, we were not told that the credit card reader was not working that day. Please be aware, this restaurant has a tendency to have problems with card payments as it is out of range of the bank (that is what I was told).

At the end of our meal, we were told that one of us would have to stay and one of us would have to walk to the nearest ATM to withdraw money. It was 23:30 so the nearest bank doors were closed. The nearest ATM was 800m away. If we were told as we sat down, we could have gotten the cash at the bank or went to a different restaurant.

They say a bad apple spoils the bunch.

It's not that walking to withdraw money is a problem, our waiter was just a donkey and made the experience worst. We felt spite when he took our order, we got a death stare when we ordered a fruit tea, and we were snapped at "cash cash cash" when we asked to pay with a card. It wasn't bad service, because that would have required there to be some sort of service. Shame, the food and location are really great.

I read through some of the other negative reviews, I suspect it's the same waiter everyone...