When Common first appeared on my radar, I couldn’t quite figure out what exactly this project was going to be. Located on Karl-Marx-Straße in Neukölln across the street from Shaam, their social media teased pastries, coffee, and then suddenly also pizza. It wasn’t until after the opening when I understood the concept: Bakery by day, pizza joint by night. A shape-shifting, dual-personality food project, united in an expertise and love for baking, with serious ambition hiding behind its stripped-back, neighborhood feel.
“ Bakery by day, pizza joint by night
The Daytime: A Bakery with unusual Ambition
Common opened its doors quietly in the summer of 2025, a surprising achievement in a restaurant landscape where hype defines most ambitious openings. During the day, Common is a Copenhagen-esque café/bakery, complete with the sleek design and offering. Hidden behind the sound-proof and slightly dimmed glass front you’ll find a quiet refuge and alternate universe to the buzzing and shawarma-shop dominated vibe off the street. The pastry offering is a small but mighty confident lineup, offering items like a dreamy and slightly acidic lemon poppy seed bun, a cinnamon swirl rolled in spiced sugar and a cardamom bun that deserves special attention: Rich, doughy and spiced just right, 100% most definitely the best of its kind in Berlin and dangerously close to the legendary Juno bun in Copenhagen (and trust me, that’s no faint praise). That’s not it though, because the sourdough egg and bacon bun is a masterpiece of indulgent breakfast art and I can proudly say that the rye bread is at least as good as the one from Sofi
The Nighttime: Backyard Pizza Dreams
But then comes the flip: at 17:00 the bakery shutters, only to reopen again at 18:00 in the backyard as an improvised pizza parlor. The setting is charmingly improvised: pizzas handed through a window, tiny outdoor chairs scattered in the courtyard, Neukölln street noise humming in the background.
The menu is tight: six pizzas total, four red and two white. When I tried the first red pizza, I instantly knew my instincts had been right when stalking their Instagram: this crew gets pizza on another level. The tomato sauce was the best I’ve had in ages, vivid, balanced, perfectly seasoned. For the pizza they’re using a three-flour sourdough mix, proofed long and handled with finesse, creating a product that exists somewhere between Gazzo-style Berlin sourdough and a Neapolitan pizza in the likes of Selecta. The result is a crust that’s airy and soft, always baked to the max with lots of charr, creating an abundance of flavor and just enough crisp to hold its shape. The white pizza stole the show: cheese, fermented potatoes, ramson, and capers. It was bold, aromatic, salty, herbaceous, everything you want in a pie. The dough itself carried so much flavor and depth that every bite felt calibrated, no topping overwhelming another.
“ this crew GETS pizza on another level..
Verdict
After visiting Common I realized that there really hasn’t been a bakery project in Berlin that’s made a lasting impression for a long time. Over the last years I’ve been arguing that the only thing that Copenhagen nowadays does a lot better than other cities are bakeries, the city is just full of bakers that go the extra mile. Eating at Common reminded me of sitting at the sun in front of Juno and sinking my teeth in the unfathomably luscious cardamom bun or my pizza experiences in Tokyo - the obsessive attention to dough and profound knowledge of ingredients and proofing. It’s rare to find that kind of attention to detail here, and it’s thrilling to see it happening off the radar on Karl-Marx-Straße. Common is still finding its rhythm, but it’s already one of the most exciting new openings of the year. My bet? This place is going to be special.
