Restaurant Tim Raue

Restaurant Tim Raue is a tasting-menu restaurant on Rudi-Dutschke-Straße in Berlin-Kreuzberg, a short walk from Checkpoint Charlie. Its cooking mixes Asian flavors with German produce.

Tim Raue grew up in Kreuzberg and trained at Chalet Suisse in the Grunewald district before running kitchens at Rosenbaum, the Kaiserstuben and Restaurant 44 in the Swissôtel. Later he led the Adlon group's restaurants near the Brandenburg Gate, where his Chinese-inspired Ma Tim Raue won a star within months. A trip to Singapore had turned him away from classic French cooking toward the heat and sharpness of Chinese food. Raue also wrote the cookbook Aromen(r)evolution and sat on the jury of the television contest Deutschlands Meisterkoch. He opened this restaurant in his old neighborhood in September 2010 together with Marie-Anne Wild, who runs the business side, and the Michelin Guide awarded it two stars in 2012.

The kitchen avoids gluten, dairy and refined sugar. Three tasting menus run side by side: Kolibri x Berlin as a tribute to the city, Koi with more openly Asian dishes, and a vegan menu. Dishes across the menus have included wasabi langoustine, wagyu borscht, Sichuan-style venison and the chef's own version of Peking duck. Opening snacks have included papaya with shichimi togarashi and a sambal manis marshmallow with grapefruit.

A slab of the Berlin Wall stands in the courtyard. Inside, the walls are painted in cool blue, and the room is filled with objects Raue brought back from his travels in Asia, and a long oak table with brass inlay faces the kitchen. A season-three episode of the Netflix series Chef's Table tells his story, and the restaurant has been a regular on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list.