The Long Grey. Where I Sit Out a Berlin Winter, Part 1
A Berlin winter is grey, wet and long. Six places I go to in the evenings to wait it out, from a Milanese bar in Mitte to a Neukölln room where the menus turn into ashtrays.
Nobody tells you how long a Berlin winter is. You find out every year.
Somewhere in November the city switches to grey and leaves it there until March. Not a dramatic grey. A tired one. The sky sits on the roofs, it gets dark at half past four, and the pavement is a mix of rain, grit and whatever the dogs left behind. The city looks like it is waiting for something, and so does everyone in it.
I’ve stopped fighting it. What I do instead is go out. Not to clubs, I did that for long enough. To rooms. Warm ones, where the windows steam up, where nobody brings the bill before you ask, and where you can sit from eight until midnight without anyone thinking that’s strange.
These are mine. Part 1.
Pinci, Mitte
Pinci sits on the corner of Große Hamburger Straße and Auguststraße and is, at heart, a Milanese daytime bar that forgot to close. In the morning it does coffee. In the evening it does what Milan does best: aperitivo that slowly turns into dinner without anyone deciding it should.
The kitchen is Italian and simple on purpose. Lots of small plates made for sharing, cured meats, focaccia, a pasta that changes with the day. You don’t order a starter and a main here. You order a few things for the table, then a few more, and somewhere in between the evening happens. With it: Italian aperitivo classics and a wine list that is worth a second look.
The room is small and minimal, so it fills quickly and gets loud in the good way. Come early, take a seat at the window, and watch Mitte walk past in black coats.
@pinci.berlin · Große Hamburger Straße 42, 10115 Berlin
Zacharias Tagesbar, Prenzlauer Berg
On the corner where Oderberger Straße meets Kastanienallee, a few minutes from Mauerpark, sits the Zacharias Tagesbar. Joel Rudischhauser and Johannes Knötig run it. They come from specialty coffee and already had the Zacharias Kaffeebar around the corner.
I’ve met Joel, and what stays with you is that he loves what he does. You notice it in him, and you notice it in everyone working behind that bar. Nobody there is just doing a shift. That’s rarer than it should be, and it’s the main reason I keep going back.
Inside: dark wood, polished metal, terracotta and olive green. It looks like it has been there for thirty years. It opened in 2025.
During the day it’s specialty coffee and breakfast. But I go for the switch. In the afternoon the coffee machine takes a step back and the place becomes an Italian aperitivo bar: a short list of wines, spritz, a Negroni, and small things to eat with it. It’s not a dinner place. It’s the place you go before dinner and then cancel dinner.
No reservations, walk-ins only. Closed Mondays.
zacharias-berlin.com · Oderberger Straße 7, 10435 Berlin
Jolie, Prenzlauer Berg
Jolie is on the corner at Kollwitzplatz, and it is the most beautiful room on this list. Mahogany everywhere, brass, a bit of 1920s yacht. It comes from the team behind The Catch and November, and you can tell somebody has thought about every surface you might put your elbow on.
The kitchen is French bistro with a Nordic accent. Classic, precise, nothing that needs explaining. In the evening it’s a proper bistro dinner with a serious wine list. Order a glass, then the bottle, because by the second glass you won’t want to leave anyway.
This is the place for a date, or for anyone you want to impress without looking like you’re trying.
Open evenings, closed Tuesdays.
jolie-berlin.com · Wörther Straße 35, 10435 Berlin
Comedor, Charlottenburg
Comedor means dining room in Spanish, and that’s what it is. Raúl Oliver Arriaga, born in Mexico City, and Julia Schmiedehausen run it on Kantstraße, which is not where you expect to find the best Mexican cooking in the city.
Forget everything you know about nachos. Then order theirs. The kitchen is modern Mexican, cooked with seasonal ingredients from around Berlin and Brandenburg, and the tortillas are made by hand every day. You taste that in the first bite.
The room is calm and warm: a terracotta wall with woven textiles made by Mexican artisans, tables built from old Berlin floorboards, Danish chairs, soft light. No cacti. No sombreros. It feels like eating at the home of someone with very good taste.
Charlottenburg is quieter than the east, and on a wet Tuesday in January that is not a bad thing.
comedor.berlin · Kantstraße 74, 10627 Berlin
Boii Boii, Kreuzberg
Boii Boii is where the evening gets louder. Nita and Niklas Wolff started out with pop-ups and found a permanent home in 2025, in the old Lode & Stijn space on Lausitzer Straße. Nita grew up in Thailand and learned to cook from her mother. Niklas is from Hamburg, like me, which finally proves we can do more than Labskaus and fish sandwiches.
They call it fun dining. Thai cooking with a clear handwriting, minus the stiffness of fine dining. A short menu made for sharing, a lot coming off the charcoal grill, Thai-inspired cocktails and natural wines that change often.
Open kitchen, warm light, art on the walls, a DJ at the bar. Half dinner, half party. Go with friends, order too much, and don’t plan anything for the next morning.
boiiboii.com · Lausitzer Straße 25, 10999 Berlin
Beuster Bar, Neukölln
Beuster is the last stop, because it’s built to be one.
I know it through my friend David, the founder of Sanssucre Studio. He used to live on the same street, and we spent more than a few evenings in here.
Weserstraße, Neukölln. The room used to be a physiotherapy practice, and the owners turned it into something that looks a hundred years old: green and white tiles, old lamps, and a bar counter from 1890 holding the bottles. Until around ten it’s a restaurant. Bistro cooking, honest and good, at prices that would get you half a plate in Mitte.
Then, once the last plate is gone, they clear the tables and swap the menus for ashtrays. Yes, you can smoke in here. And the restaurant you were just eating in turns into a bar around you. You don’t have to move. That’s the whole point.
It’s open every day from six, so even a Monday in February has somewhere to end.
beusterbar.com · Weserstraße 32, 12045 Berlin
The winter won’t get shorter. It will be grey until March, and on most days the city will keep looking like it is waiting for something.
But the windows on these six corners steam up, the wine is open, and somebody inside is holding a table for whoever comes in from the cold.
Part 2 follows while it’s still grey. So: soon.
Max Johann Hubert Hasenohr
