Bites : Restaurant Report: Katz Orange in Berlin

Katz Orange

Pasta and salt at Berlin's Katz Orange.

Berlin may be a capital of Europe's art and clubbing scenes, but when it comes to food, it still lags well behind restaurant-obsessed cities like Paris and London. There are a few standout Michelin-starred restaurants and plenty of cheap kebabs and currywurst stands, but not much in between. In the last few years though, a few ambitious (mostly American) chefs have opened small, modern bistro-style spots that celebrate local organic ingredients. The success of farmer-driven places like Lokal and Little Otik (both overseen by American chefs) have proven that there is a growing appetite for upscale seasonal comfort food.

What makes Katz Orange especially compelling, beyond its name (which means orange cat in German, and was inspired by the owner's trip to a Peruvian shaman who owned such an animal), is that it is helmed by the young and ambitious German chef Daniel Finke, who applies his knowledge and skills to both deceptively simple meat dishes and innovative vegetarian ones. The small, well-focused menu, simply printed on brown paper, features about a dozen appetizers and entrees under two categories: seasonal and classics. It's best to sample from both.

One recent entry on the seasonal side, a raw shaved-broccoli salad, is a love letter to cruciferous vegetables, richly layered with roasted almonds, a sauce of umeboshi (pickled Japanese plums) and an intense broccoli purée. For the restaurant's signature entree, slow roasted pork, the kitchen uses only the choicest cut of organic pork neck. It is cooked sous vide for 12 hours and then placed under a salamander broiler to create a crunchy caramelized crust. (In comparison, the menu's relatively standard beef tartare is a bit lackluster.)

Served with a flurry of seasonal vegetable side dishes like sautéed mushrooms and a ginger cucumber salad, the pork dish has more umami allure than a streetside kebab at Mustafa's in Kreuzberg.

At 46 euros, about $57 at $1.25 to the euro, for two people, it's also a lot more expensive, but it matches an upscale crowd of international hipster families, Bavarians with an aristocratic bearing and older, food-loving tourists. (The restaurant is also rock 'n' roll enough for Lou Reed, who recently ate there two days in a row.)

The space is impressive: Katz Orange, which opened in January, takes up the bottom two floors of a 19th-century former brewery, tucked away in a back courtyard. At night its ornate red brick facade is dramatically illuminated, and an open-air terrace fronts the entrance in warm weather.

Ludwig Cramer-Klett, the half-Swiss, half-Bavarian owner, said by phone that he wants to offer dishes that reflect conscious thinking, whether it's about eating meat from "happy pigs" or vegan dishes. "We don't want to dictate what is the right way to eat, we just want to show the different ways. But most important is that it's all delicious."

Katz Orange, Bergstrasse 22; (49-30) 983-208-430; katzorange.com. An average meal for two, without drinks or tip, is about 90 euros.

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Bites : Restaurant Report: Katz Orange in Berlin

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