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Dae Mon Open minded cuisine on Monbijou Platz

Tuesday, November 21 2023
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Opening Times

Tuesday to Saturday from 6:30pm

Address

Dae Mon
Monbijouplatz 11
10178 Berlin-Mitte
.How to get there

Contact


+49 30 26 30 48 11
.www.dae-mon.com

price level

The Dae Mon restaurant on Monbijou Platz in Mitte is barely recognisable from the street. Such is the discreet glow of the pioneering light installation above the entrance. A genuine understatement that continues inside: Mild lighting, dark whitewashed walls, the seating design classics by Hans J. Wegner.

A free-standing dark bar in the centre. At the back is the open-plan kitchen, where the Dae Mon's kitchen team works in a focussed manner. There is a large table with elaborately crafted wooden inlays, large-format intense photographs by Berlin artist Tina Winkhaus and ingenious light installations in the long corridor and above the pass.

The interior, created by designer Felix Pahnke, has become more intimate. Cosier without losing its coolness. Just like a home, the rooms have been constantly changing since the opening in 2014. They are growing, showing more and more of the soul of the team behind Dae Mon, and owner Stefan Reinhardt is also proving to have a happy hand with this.

Dae Mon Restaurant © Steffen Sinzinger-09
Dae Mon Restaurant © Steffen Sinzinger-07
Dae Mon Restaurant © Steffen Sinzinger-08
Dae Mon Restaurant © Steffen Sinzinger-06
Dae Mon Restaurant © Steffen Sinzinger-01
Dae Mon Restaurant © Steffen Sinzinger-10
Dae Mon Restaurant © Steffen Sinzinger-11

The service is highly charming and professional. Everything is light yet precise. Just like the menus, which two young chefs have created since the summer: The two childhood friends Samuel Haas and Phillip Steixner from Austria will prove to be natural strokes of luck this evening.

Haas, who initially worked as sous-chef under Raphael Schünemann, was the one who brought his friend from the Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant Ichigoichie in Ireland to Berlin when Schünemann left. While Haas already impressed with his passion for unusual flavours and original combinations, Steixner is a master of presentation and technique. A modern duo without hierarchical thinking. That alone is inspiring.

Once started as an exclusive Korean restaurant, Dae Mon now stands for a cuisine that owner Reinhardt describes as "open-minded cuisine": An upscale cuisine in which Asian flavours play with regional ingredients to create unexpectedly delicious dishes. There are few carbohydrates and vegetables often take centre stage.

The menu changes around four times a year and the details are adapted to the market. There are two menus with ten to twelve courses each, one vegetarian, one with fish and meat, accompanied by a choice of wine or tea. The wines are consistently fantastic and carefully chosen. But we are even more impressed by the teas.

The delicate leaves from Japan, China and India are steeped exclusively in cold water for 22 hours before being served. As a result, they develop hardly any bitter substances and only a little teein. They are drunk at red wine temperature. Our enthusiasm for the fine flavours and the perfect pairing with the dishes is vast.

But what about the cuisine at Dae Mon? Let's get straight to the point: What Samuel Haas and Phillip Steixner bring to the plate is sensational. They have a perfect command of playing with textures. All the courses up to dessert are cosy, soft, crispy, sweet, sour, surprising and, above all, always harmonious.

The vegetarian courses are particularly impressive. For example, when delicate cherry wood smoke rises from a small box of carrot, buckwheat and ponzu, and then the components come together in the mouth, everything is good. There is nothing to distract you and for a moment it becomes entirely peaceful, that's how blissful it feels.

The Asian mushrooms with salted lemon, pecorino and an excellent jus are also stunning. More of the same will tantalise all the senses. But the octopus with samphire, pimentos and fermented tomato or the duck with wild broccoli, concentrated red cabbage cream and a ravishing jus also make us think of a star repeatedly.

To cut a long story short: Definitely go there!

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