ORA - Oranien Apotheke Good Food Is The Best Medicine

Cured salmon with kohlrabi salad at ORA, Berlin - Kreuzberg

When I first visited ORA, I couldn’t stop being awed by the charm and uniqueness of this location. If you love to dine in a beautiful setting with a great ambiance and a cinematic interior that whispers history, than that’s the place to be in Berlin! The former Oranien Apotheke on Oranienplatz in Berlin Kreuzberg was a pharmacy before being converted into a café in 2015. It is told, that the name ORA was chosen from the only three remaining neon letters of the sign on the façade still functioning, when the owners first lit it after taking over the place. Obviously, the old pharmacy was so beautiful, they couldn’t resist but to preserve it. The interior still features the original woodwork with dark medicine cabinets and ceiling cornies from the 1860s and the 1920s. The original tiled floor was also kept and accompanied by dark green leather sofas, ancient coffee house furniture and old pharmacy replicas to complete the old look, transferring diners back in time. For something so pretty, ORA didn’t remain unknown for long and quickly reached fame amongst Berliners. Soon, folks started pilgriming to the place with their smartphones to worship it on Instagram.

Once a pharmacy, it is now curing empty stomachs with good food instead of with medicine. Starting out as a café in 2015, ORA is one of these places that underwent a successful transformation into a wine bar and restaurant. It surely has an impressive wine list with more than 300 different types of wines on its account and in addition a selection of cocktails as well. The food menu is very straightforward. You can always expect something new as it changes daily, depending on the season and the sourcing of the ingredients. I’m always happy to encounter on restaurants like these, because it shows how much creativity and effort the kitchen is putting into its creations to provide the utmost freshness to its diners and where you have the joy of surprise each and every time. It’s also one of the few places, where they bake their own bread. The sourdough bread is highly recommended and some are so in love with it, they buy their bread at ORA on a regular basis instead of going to the bakery. 

I first came to ORA in 2016 to have some business talk over food with my colleagues. It was a cold day and fairly early, when the Kreuzberg party animals still seem to be sleeping. The ORA was only filled with a few guests. You could hear the dishes clinking in the background while the front of house was preparing for service. We set down in a corner to have some hot drinks to warm up and ordered some bacon and eggs and scones to nibble. The poached eggs were as how poached eggs should be, but the bacon was terribly overcooked. Luckily, the scone and the freshly pressed juices, which are a rarity on Berlin’s drinks menus, made it up for the unhappy bacon. And when the waiter came out with a smile on his face to bring our water - not in a jug but in an Erlenmeyer flask, we were totally entangled and sold.

As our talk went on, we decided to settle for lunch. The dish that caught my attention at the time was the cured salmon with kohlrabi salad, apples and radish, tossed with horseradish cream. It was a combination I never had before that triggered my curiosity. The dish didn’t fail to impress. The slightly hot horseradish cream and the crunchy texture of the cool kohlrabi salad worked great with the salmon, turning the dish into a beautifully light and refreshing starter. My main was pikeperch fillet with creamy barley risotto and some greens, which was not as memorable as the salmon though. I surely would have had some dessert from the very tempting pastry counter – yes, they do make nice pastry here as well, had my stomach have enough space to stuff another piece of that shiny chocolate cake, and had we not run out of time. We had a pleasant forenoon here and the food seemed to taste extra good, especially because not you but your company was paying the bill. 

For more information about ORA, visit http://ora.berlin.