Umami clever name, clever food?

Umami is a clever name for a restaurant that focuses on Asian fusion. It’s a word play that considers the word ‘umami’, meaning ‘pleasant savoury taste’ in Japanese and the word ‘Mami’, meaning mum in German. Together with saltiness, sweetness, sourness and bitterness, umami is one of the five basic tastes, discovered in 1908 by a Japanese scientist named Kikunae Ikeda, a professor of the Tokyo Imperial University. Since its discovery scientists have argued whether umami can be considered as a taste or not. It took almost a century until umami was recognised as a scientific term to describe the taste of glutamate or something ‘brothy’, ‘meaty’, and ‘savoury’. And Mami, because the concept of the restaurant is based on mum’s home cooking and comfort food. 

Decorated in Vietnamese vintage shabby chic style, this restaurant offers a rustic interior and an excellent seating area outside with exotic lanterns, bamboos and flowers. The restaurant is situated in the middle of the Kollwitz-Kiez in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg, where the beautiful and hip people flock by and tourist are a frequent sight. It is a hip place no doubt, where you spot international models and German celebrities from time to time. And as a hip place, it is packed on weekends and even during the week. Evening reservations are a must, if you don’t want to queue for your meal, sometimes even at 10pm. It is often so packed that you might need to raise your volume in order to project your voice otherwise the conversation with your friends will get drowned within the noise level. Therefore, one must congratulate the owners for the great success of the restaurant since the very first day of its opening.

Despite the inconveniences of such a popular restaurant, I like to come here on warm, sunny days to have a meal or some drinks outside and doze in the shadow of the maple trees in front of the house. You can avoid the crowd if you come just before lunchtime. The menu, available in German and English, is straightforward and displays a set of dishes with fancy names like ‘Diving Dough’ or ‘Pearl On Spoon’. The food is anything what is meant to be home cooking, especially not a traditional Vietnamese home cooking nor is it mum’s comfort food. It’s different, because it’s fusion! The drinking card looks more appealing. It offers a variety of nicely blend mocktails, cocktails and smoothies among the other standard drinks that you will get in the restaurants. 

Last time when I was here, my friends and I already had a decent brunch when we took a stroll around the Kollwitz Platz. But none of us could resist the inviting view of the peaceful scenery, which forced us to stop for another lunch. We ordered the ‘Highland Refresher’, a cold Vietnamese highland coffee with ice and sweet condensed milk, and ‘Aloha Aloe’, aloe vera juice with pineapple pieces and summery garnishing. After scanning up and down the menu, we decided to have a small snack, and went for the ‘Tonking’s Roast Duck’, basically roast duck breast on a bed of stir-fried vegetables and Thai Basil pesto, and the ‘Autumn Garden Salad’, which is a mango salad. My friends, who came all the way down from London, just to eat their way through Berlin’s food scene, were very happy with the choice, and I was a happy host. 

For more information about Umami, visit www.umami-restaurant.de.