Ernst in its current form is only 3 moths old, however it used to operate as a pop up restaurant in Chef Dylan Watson’s apartment. Now they stopped this format and have opened their own restaurant. And it is about to become the first true destination restaurant in Berlin.
These guys are really good, they have a concept loosely based on the kaiseki dramaturgy, tell a story and surprise you with great flavours. Dylan unpacks his experience working in the three star restaurant Ryogin in Tokyo in his new place. He focuses on simplicity of his dishes and sources locally without getting dogmatic about it so for example his pork comes from Austria and his citrus from Sicily.
The menu contained 30 courses of which only two are not a vegetable or a fruit. The chicken course was a 8 months old bird, 21 days dry aged, roasted and then gently smoked over hay. The hairy crab is interestingly local seafood, escaped from Chinese ships and made a local river their new home. Unlike China and Japan nobody in German eats them and they normally will be thrown away as bycatch of a eel fisher.
Maybe the most surprising characteristic of ernst of its complete discarding of the world wide fine dining trend of over indulging on luxury products. His extraordinary potato dish would easily lend itself to add caviar but Dylan does not veer off his line!
Great experience.