Find the Best Restaurants in Berlin

Recently it became clear that something about Berlin Food Stories isn’t as obvious as we thought. During the same week, three restaurant owners reached out, citing that they were “in need of a promotional push” and asking “how much a feature on Berlin Food Stories would cost them”. The messages revealed a profound misunderstanding that has somehow has started to appear more and more often in conversations and social media comments; the assumption that we take money from restaurants, that coverage is arranged, or that placements are somehow part of a deal.

They aren’t.

BFS has always operated very differently from most food media you consume and creators that you follow. But maybe because I’ve been doing this for over 15 years and because I don’t talk about it every day, and because we do publish paid content for brands, people don’t actually have the full picture of how we operate. How could you? The ecosystem around restaurant coverage and content has also changed dramatically over the past decade with rise of the food creator, so it seems like the right moment to explain, clearly and without ambiguity, how Berlin Food Stories actually works.

So here it is, simply.

Berlin Food Stories is an independent guide to Berlin’s best restaurants. It’s a curated manifesto of the food places in this city that we believe are truly worth seeking out, whether that means a destination fine-dining experience or a tiny street food stall doing something extraordinary. We eat like chefs and live by the principle that an exceptional meal transcends price and setting. Everything you see recommended on BFS exists for one reason only: we loved it enough to report about it.

Berlin Food Stories was founded by Per Meurling (that’s me), a Swede who grew up in Germany with a background in cooking and business, and is operated today by myself and a small crew of deeply committed food obsessives. What united us: We are people who plan our days, weeks, and sometimes entire holidays around restaurants and food. People who taste carefully, argue passionately about food, spend their existence around food, who will overcome any obstacle for a great meal and care a great endlessly about the craft behind what ends up on a plate. In other words: professionals with a serious appetite.

Berlin Food Stories started in 2012 as a simple WordPress hobby-blog while Per was still working in tech. At the time, Berlin’s food scene was still widely underdeveloped. Per began documenting the restaurants he loved, partly out of enthusiasm, partly out of frustration that the most interesting cooking in the city wasn’t being taken seriously enough and that too much focus was being out on hype. What started as a personal project slowly evolved into the platform BFS is today, but the basic principle has remained exactly the same.

Berlin Food Stories is first and foremost for people who plan their lives around restaurants and appreciate diversity in food as much as we do. The kind of diners who carefully reflect about ingredients, technique, sourcing, and flavour combinations. The kind of eaters who approach a meal the way a chef might: curious, attentive, and deeply interested in what’s happening on the plate and story behind it. The kind of guest that can look beyond a gritty interior and appreciate a restaurant for its outstanding cooking, but simultaneously can see through a fancy interior restaurant and spot mid and hyped cooking. If food is simply fuel, BFS probably isn’t for you. If hype and looks are more important than substance, than there are other channels to follow. If food is something you travel across a city, country or continent to experience, then you’re exactly who we write for.

We care about greatness, not category. That means we apply the same enthusiasm whether we’re talking about a multi-course tasting menu or a single, perfectly executed sandwich. From destination fine dining to humble street food stalls, the question is always the same: Is the food and the experience exceptional? Price, setting, and prestige rarely correlate with true greatness. Some of the most memorable things we’ve eaten in Berlin came from places with plastic chairs.

No. And let me be very clear about this:

We do not attend press dinners. We do not go to restaurant openings.

Our goal and ambition is always to test a new restaurant anonymously. We decide where to eat based on information compiled from multiple sources: Our own curiosity, recommendations from people whose palates we trust, social media and Google review photos and a the accumulated frame of reference from tens of thousands of restaurant meals. If we show up somewhere, it’s because we genuinely wanted to be there. Are there exceptions to the rule? Yes, we’re not the Michelin Guide with the backing of a large corporations - sometimes we accept invites to e.g. events in fine dining restaurants that we have visited before, but these are rare exceptions to make sure we can also report about fine dining. And just in case you didn't know, the Michelin Guide is essentially THE one and only publication in Germany that operates with a budget that enables them to test anonymously and pay their bills. No one else does that, not the mayor newspapers, not the magazine, and most definitely not your favorite food creator.

Absolutely not.

Restaurants cannot pay for placement on Berlin Food Stories. Not now, not ever and they never have been. Our opinions are not for sale, and we never ask restaurants for free meals in exchange for coverage. For certain brand partners (like Uber Eats), we will sometimes publish paid features that include restaurants that we love and recommend in our regular reporting.

Cook truly exceptional food. That’s really it. We get multiple invitations to restaurants every day (apologies if you didn’t get a response for us), but there really is no way to invite us to your restaurant. We spend a huge portion of our time exploring and keeping track of Berlin’s dining scene. When something genuinely great appears, we will find out about it. The best marketing strategy for appearing on BFS has always been the same: Cook something people can’t stop talking about.

Because it’s not our mission to take restaurants down. We eat in a lot of places that never appear on Berlin Food Stories. If we visit somewhere and don’t love it, we simply move on and don't make a big deal of it.

Only a small fraction of the meals we eat end up being featured publicly. BFS exists to highlight the places that excite us, not to punish the ones that don’t. That hip new restaurant you see everyone else talking about and not us? Might just be a reason for that.

Our independence is funded through a few carefully chosen channels. We work with brands we genuinely like and use (thanks to Uber Eats, Frische Paradies and the KaDeWe), we sell the BFS Restaurant Gift Voucher, and we offer a premium membership through the Berlin Food Club. Per also takes on the occasional speaker job and consultancy gig. None of these revenue streams involve restaurants paying for coverage. That separation is fundamental to how BFS works.

The BFS voucher is a gift card that can be redeemed in more than 50 of our favourite restaurants in Berlin. It allows people to explore the city’s best places while directly supporting the restaurants we believe in.

The Berlin Food Club is our membership community for serious food lovers. Members get access to perks that include:

- Early access to meals we’ve eaten

- A dedicated Discord server for restaurant discussion

- Exclusive food events

- Insider recommendations and conversations about Berlin’s dining scene

It’s essentially a place where the most obsessive restaurant people in the city can gather and we’re very proud to manage this extraordinary community of food lovers.

Absolutely!

We’re always interested in meeting true food nerds, people who care truly about the cause of guiding people to the right restaurants and have a special skill that can help develop BFS as a project. If that sounds like you, send us a note.

DM us, or head to the link in our bio.

Berlin Food Stories has always been built on a very simple philosophy: No invitations. No paid reviews. No takedowns.

Just a deep love for truly great restaurants and a desire to make sure the best ones get the attention they deserve.