Restaurant Ryke Fine sustainable neighbourhood cuisine in Prenzlauer Berg

There are restaurants where we know at first glance: This is Creme Guides. A simple, inviting interior, light wood and pastel tones on tables and walls, warm light, and cleverly placed art on the walls. Add to that a small menu of fine regional cuisine and an organic wine selection, and we're hooked. Introducing: The Ryke.

The new restaurant Ryke named after the street it's on in Prenzlauer Berg, is Fan Xiaofen's next project, within the walls of her former restaurant Akemi. The Chinese-born designer also runs Ramen X Ramen in Friedrichshain, where you can easily recognise the hand of Atelier Raumfragen, who also designed the interior of Ryke.

With the new restaurant, the gastro entrepreneur is now devoting herself to a different direction. Together with chef Roman Schönberger, she has developed a gastronomic concept in which proximity and openness to the neighbourhood are just as important as sustainability and regionality.

Casual fine dining is the credo here. With only eleven items, the evening menu focuses on a balanced selection that celebrates modern dining culture without a set menu, which vegetarians and vegans can also enjoy. The Ryke appreciates its neighbourhood and a clientele that values healthy, high-quality food as much as the social aspect of dining. So you can have a wine evening here as well as a family meal or a relaxed breakfast at the weekend.

1 | 5

With a glass of Grüner Veltliner Pet Nat from Matthias Hager, we enjoy crusty bread with homemade koji butter. Koji is a noble mould from Japanese cuisine that gives the butter a particularly round umami taste.

The starter arrives, and Chef Roman guides us through the courses himself. I opt for a piece of skin-roasted cod, of course, regional from 25 Ponds, with calf's foot enriched pea ragout, fresh mint and a sauce made from asparagus juice fermented for six days. Contrast this with the vegan, sous-vide cooked roast potato: potato sticks cooked for 3 hours at 80 degrees with marjoram and oil, with onion cream made from slow-cooked red onions, vegan creme fraiche, and a small salad of parsley cress and marjoram.

Fine dining is not neglected. Roman, who trained for a long time with Michelin-starred chef Vjekoslav Pavic and most recently worked at the Duke restaurant under Florian Glauert, knows what he's doing. We switch to Baia's Wine, Tsolikouri, a Georgian orange wine. While the menu is concise, the wine list, lovingly curated by sommelière Kati von Flocken, features a wider selection.

The main course is meat and fish, like all courses, served on beautiful handmade pottery made especially for Ryke. There is also sous-vide, or vacuum-cooked, pork belly with a cream of fermented leeks and brown butter, grilled leeks and crispy pork skin, which can best be described as deliciously hearty.

I, meanwhile, stick to fish. A piece of sturgeon, with an exciting gröstl of potatoes and smoked eel, and an onsen egg, i.e. an egg simmered at low temperature and soft as butter. A successful mix of flavours.

For dessert, I have a Hallgarten Riesling from old vines, which always convey a special aroma. Two cold desserts round off the meal. Rhubarb sorbet with roasted hazelnuts and cream ice cream made from dehydrated parsley root with apple ragout and pickled mustard seeds, parsley leaf, Granny Smith juice and apple cider vinegar. Sounds wild, but its variety of flavours makes it a perfect match for a warm summer evening.

If we lived in Prenzlauer Berg, Ryke, this absolutely "cremeguidesque" restaurant could become our new go-to neighbourhood restaurant. But for now, we are just happy to have discovered it and are excited to see what the future will bring to our plates.

Maximilian Zeh

Marketing & PR