Restaurants
Dr & Dr Catering & Cooking courses à l'orientale
Map
Opening Times
Tuesday to Sunday 12-15
Address
Dr & Dr Middle Eastern Culture and Food Lab
Reichenberger Straße 116
10999 Berlin-Kreuzberg
.How to get there
Contact
They have to be grilled over a fire, the eggplants. Baba ganoush, the wonderful dip from Lebanon, is simply not perfect without the smoky aroma. For the tahdig, the rice dish that every child in Iran knows, the caramelized barberries must glow red, the chopped pistachios must glow green and sparkle like gemstones on the crispy crust.
The golden yellow rice pudding with its pink, edible rose petals is like a painting. A riot of color that is followed by taste. It's not far to the Middle East. In Kreuzberg, hidden behind a plain entrance door, lies the realm of Forough and Sahar Sodoudi and their "Middle Eastern Culture and Food Lab" called Dr & Dr.
Dr & Dr is not a restaurant, but rather a place of encounters with cooking courses and private dinner evenings. The German-Iranian twin sisters also cook Middle Eastern classics with a new, contemporary twist. It's always about more than just food. "Our aim is to make the fascinating subtleties of Middle Eastern culture, which are hidden behind religion and politics, tangible in a sensual and culinary way," says Forough Sodoudi, describing the cultural exchange on various levels.
1 | 5
The cooking courses, always in German or English and also available privately, start again in spring. "Middle Eastern Veggie Feast" or "Persian Kiss", the courses sound as beautiful as the finished dishes look, so you could speak of Eat-Art. Staged presentations, accompanied by Persian music, cultural history(ies) for each individual dish and practical kitchen knowledge. Why does saffron change color when it is ground? Just one of the secrets that Forough and Sahar Sodoudi get to the bottom of.
The Dr & Dr food lab itself is also designed like a stage: A long table with around a dozen seats and lots of candles, hand-painted wall tiles like those from Tehran's Golestan Palace. At the kitchen counter, an Iranian garden gate serves as a door between the rooms, a place that seems to have fallen out of time and space. And yet completely in the here and now.
So it's about more than just cooking, more than just eating. Eating together and exchanging ideas, just as the sisters, who were born in Berlin and grew up in Tehran, know it from their Iranian home. A culture of indulgence that is hardly known in this country and of which the two see themselves as ambassadors. "We want to show the entire Middle East as a unity with peace and love for the whole world," is their mission.
To this end, they have ended their previous scientific careers. Both studied physics in Tehran, one meteorology and the other geophysics. Contradictory, so to speak, one turned to the sky, the other to the earth. They completed their doctorates in Berlin - which explains the name of their pleasure laboratory, Dr & Dr - and then worked successfully for years.
Forough was a science manager, Sahar a professor of urban climate research at the Free University of Berlin. This explains the sisters' strong commitment to climate protection, sustainability and zero waste, which is inextricably linked to Dr & Dr. They have already been awarded the "German Gastro Founder's Prize" for their "Make food not war" concept, and in 2023 they were also named "Cultural and Creative Pilots Germany".
Their first cookbook "Hier fließt die Liebe - Persische Küche" has just been published. - We wish you good enjoyment!
