There’s likely not a national cuisine anywhere in the world that can’t be had in metropolitan Berlin. In fact, up until recently, the fine dining scene had covered virtually every possible alternative. Except Berlin itself. That was our challenge, our mission: Nobelhart und Schmutzig does Berlin — if we don’t have it, you don’t need it. Our dishes are prepared exclusively using products from the capital and its surroundings, extending to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg and the Baltic Sea. Our goal is to make simple things, superlatively. The end result is more than just a delicious meal, it’s a new and intimate relationship with the product and its producer.

This approach means no pepper, lemon, chocolate, tuna, curry or a raft of other seemingly commonplace treats that in fact are only produced far, far away. So what’s left to eat? Everything! One need only learn to look beyond the fillet cut or the colorful fruit of the plant. It’s all edible — presuming you know how to prepare it right. For us, this wisdom is precisely what gives a dish its worth: the knowledge of how to handle a base ingredient properly and respectfully, not from how much it costs to have it shipped in. Every product we work with is accorded this same courtesy; when it graces our plates, the kohlrabi is on equal footing with the lamb belly.

The recipes at Nobelhart & Schmutzig are distilled down to just a few dominant flavors, with the intention of serving the tastes of both gourmet and casual diner alike. We focus on what nature provides for us each season. Because the winter is less bountiful than the summer, old-fashioned techniques for preservation like fermentation, salting, tinning and pickling offer more than just a hedonistic charm. They are also admirable and enduring forms of natural preservation.