Singapore’s first Berlin-style restaurant has currywurst with sauce made from scratch, kebabs and more

Berlin is a city with hardcore fans around the globe, so the only question that comes up when you hear of Singapore’s first restaurant dedicated to the German capital’s food scene is: Why has it taken this long?

Berlin65 is a casual eatery on Stanley Street where you can finally get your fix of currywurst with fries, Berlin-style kebabs, Kreuzbeurg-brewed beer on tap, and more. Only a few months old, the restaurant, with its laid-back vibe and street art styled walls, pays homage to the melting-pot cuisine of a city that’s famously edgy, artsy, full of history and colourfully multicultural, with Turkish and Vietnamese cooking being a big part of it.

Who are the founders? Erm, well, they are Austrians. Berlin65 is opened by Stephan Zoisl of fine dining restaurant Chef’s Table By Chef Stephan, and Lorenz Raich, who is also Group Executive Chef at casual Bavarian chain restaurant Brotzeit.

But, seeing as Berlin and Singapore are similar in that they are “a melting pot” of cultures, as Raich pointed out, who’s keeping score?

He and Zoisl were motivated to start Berlin65 because they themselves, having lived here for about a decade, longed for the things they would eat on their numerous trips to the German city.

“In Singapore, you can find everything in good quality. You get food from France, Italy and all over the world. But, you can't find this German style. This was always, for us, the biggest craving,” Raich shared.

Berlin’s most famous street food is, of course, the currywurst, a pork sausage doused in curry ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder.  

Here at Berlin65, it’s more gourmet than pre-made fast food: The curry ketchup is made in-house according to a recipe that Zoisl came up with while playing around in the kitchen. “We cook it from scratch with only fresh ingredients: We roast a lot of onions, then add garlic, tomato paste and lots of fresh tomatoes, and blend it into a fine sauce. It has a bit more of a fresh character than traditional curry ketchup,” Raich said.

The curry powder used comes directly from Germany – no, not Tekka market – as German curry powder is its own animal. “It’s a bit more yellow… I don’t think you’ll find this kind of curry powder in Asia’s cuisine,” Raich chuckled.

Wash it down with BRLO Pale Ale, brewed in Kreuzberg, exclusively available here on tap.

Then there is the other essential, the Berlin-style doner kebab. “You can get good sausages and schnitzel in Singapore, but the German interpretation of the kebab was really an item missing,” Raich said. The distinctive element? The additional ingredients. While in Turkey, a kebab would be flatbread with meat and a bit of onion, “It became a German thing to add fresh vegetables like cabbage, tomato, cucumber and different sauces,” Raich said.

Among Berlin65’s doner kebabs are The 1972 Berlin Original (S$18), featuring spit-roasted chicken with lettuce, tomato and a garlic yoghurt dressing; and the Banh Mi (S$18) with spit-roasted chicken, pate, pickles, sriracha, coriander and loads of vegetables. There’s also a vegetarian option in Vegetable is King (S$19), which has roasted portobello mushroom, feta cheese, tomato, cucumber, homemade tomato chilli sauce, pickled onion, garlic yoghurt and fresh chilli.

There are more Turkish-inspired items on the menu, such as Simit Bread (S$4.50) baked with molasses and sesame and paired with a spicy tomato dip; Turkish Flatbread (S$4.50) with white and black sesame seeds and paired with a garlic yoghurt sauce; and Adana Kebab, grilled hand-minced skewers of beef and lamb served with basmati rice.

And other dishes from traditional Berlin home cooking include Konigsberger Klopse (S$16 or S$22) or meatballs made with veal and beef in a white roux with capers; and Berliner Buletten (S$24) or spicy beef patties served with potato salad, braised red cabbage and mustard.

End off with a vanilla, strawberry or apricot jam Berliner (S$8) and think about how John F Kennedy was famously misunderstood to have proclaimed himself a jelly doughnut in his iconic 1963 “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.

Berlin65 is at 30 Stanley Street.