Borchardt

Borchardt is the brasserie on Französische Straße in Mitte that has functioned as Berlin's political and media power-lunch room since the 1990s reopening of the 1893 original. The Wiener Schnitzel — pounded to a saucer, Bratkartoffeln on the side — is the marker order; the room is high-ceilinged, columned, mirrored. The booking is the point: the Bundestag press corps, the federal-government circuit, the foreign diplomats, the visiting business class all book the same room. No Michelin star and none expected — the kitchen is doing one job, perfectly, for 130 years.