Kreuz + Kümmel Indian-Inspired Cuisine

The restaurant Kreuz + Kümmel is nestled between the inviting premises of the City Mission in Auguststraße in Mitte. Stone floors, grey and petrol-coloured velvet armchairs, petrol-coloured walls, hanging plants, and an open, crackling fireplace as the highlight.

An Indian feast at Kreuz + Kümmel is best started with an aperitif like the Masala Smash. Matched to this there’s ‘Phool Makhana Popcorn’, puffed lotus seeds that are roasted with ghee and spices, and finger food like the Indian-spiced borek cigarette pastry served with a tamarind chutney.

The restaurant’s name is a synonym for its love for the excellent and intense spices found in Indian cuisine, and the skilful playfulness with which dishes are prepared here. The best examples of this are the currywurst made of Thuringian Duroc pig, personally “wursted” by the chef and served Indian street-food style with a toasted masala brioche.

The superb S-black angus beef ribs are cooked for twelve hours with dried apricots, falling off the bone onto alu posto: a typical Indian dish of poppy seed mashed potatoes. The beans foogath couldn’t be any more exotic in their preparation with black mustard, curry leaves, and coconut shavings.

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Almost the only regional dishes that head chef Singh doesn’t twist to prove that every soul food can be made Indian are Chicken Tikka Masala and the vegetarian Paneer Tikka Masala. These remain purely Indian.

Manuela Blisse

Author Berlin