.HBC | Dinner and …?

It's early evening and we're looking at red chairs at set tables. At night, when all guests have left, they're piled up to make it easier for the cleaners to get through. “Our guests are crumling”, says one of the waiters. He's referring to the bread in the bread baskets that are placed on each table at dinnertime. During the course of dinner, I catch myself wiping crumbs off the white table cloth.

.HBC is housed in the former Haus Ungarn at Alexanderplatz, the artistic playground of owner Maxime Boillat, manager Stephan Rothfuss and the artist Nicolas Defawe. Boillat plays a rather conventional role in the trio: “We're an excellent match. We complement each other. I grew up setting tables and arranging decorations. If I stem from a well-to-do family, Defawe's home was a swinger club. And it wouldn't hurt if Rothfuss would act more like a Swabian sometimes.” 

After almost two years, the trio has taken over this unusual location at Alexanderplatz that spans two generous rooms, a very large waiting team and, on weekends, up to 600 guests can populate the bar, club and restaurant areas. On a good night, that is. .HBC started out offering lunch, but it soon became evident that this wouldn't pan out: “You have to pressure the chefs and get them to wake up”, says Boillat. The restaurant guests usually won't show up before 9 pm, so head chef Hugo De Carvallo faces unusually late shifts. “We haven't completely abandoned the idea of offering daytime food, but dinner business has only recently become well-attuned.”

Boillat, a Swiss Frenchman, came to Berlin 11 years ago because of its bustling club and music scenes. Actually a certified archeologist who had once traveled to excavations in the middle East, he opened the techno club Münzsalon in Mitte before moving on to WMF and later managing the Tartane Restaurant on Torstraße. He quickly realized that this wasn't exactly what he'd been looking for cuisine-wise. “This right here is so much more”, explains Boillat. Maybe it's the fact that a club-restaurant enables a gradual retreat from the club scene. While hardly a guest will admit it, most people that can afford such a combination are over 35. They're guests that don't want to decide right away if their night will be a bar night or a club night. “And yet it's usually the restaurant guests that end up staying the longest.” 

(emh)