Andreas Künster | Kasseler and Maple Syrup

A region's history and regional products: The newly opened restaurant Ø on Mehringdamm brings them both together. Part of the ceiling cladding used to line the former Café Moskau and some of the lamps used to dangle from the ceilings of the GDR construction office. Regional cuisine is a priority at Ø and the concept doesn't stop at the bar. “The kitchen uses many unusual flavors and many fresh ingredients and I do the same behind the bar. Right now, I'm experimenting with banana mint” says bar manager Andreas Künster, an advocate of “cuisine style” cocktail mixing.

After gigs at Prince Charles and with Cookie, Künster, who hails from an area near Strasbourg, developed the entire bar concept for Ø, initiating such unusual drinks as the Kasseler Sazerac with meat-flavored bourbon and gin with Spreewald pickle flavor.

How do you get a gin to taste like pickles? By infusing pickles in the gin, the same way tea is made. It's a little more complicated with a piece of meat like Kasseler. It is subjected to a procedure called “fat washing”, where the grease from the meat is mixed with bourbon After a while the liquor cools down and the fat moves to the surface where it can be filtered out. “The butcher gets a kick out of it when I explicitly ask for fatty meat there” says Andreas Künster. The meaty bourbon mixes best with maple syrup, whiskey barrel aged bitters and absynth in a cocktail. “The syrup's sweet flavor makes for a round taste, not as extreme as you'd think” says 30-year-old Künster.

“We've deliberately kept our menu compact: Six signature drinks and a few cocktail classics.” The menu covers all primary spirits – except for rum. “Even though it's actually my favorite liquor” says Künster. “But I primarily followed our guests' wishes.” This also means that he will whip up special drinks upon request.

Next to more unusual choices like the Kasseler Sazerac, Künster's bar also offers five original Ø drinks like Marie Luise with gin, carrot juice, lemon, honey syrup and celery bitters and a Rooibush Margarita with tequila, lime and agave syrup and a rooibush infusion.

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