Berlin’s two Michelin-starred chef Tim Raue’s newest restaurant, La Soupe Popluaire, is the latest in a series of highly esteemed restaurants reshaping Berlin’s culinary landscape. Both the concept behind the gallery-cum-restaurant, where art meets the culinary arts, and its execution at once set it apart. The art and the food enjoy a symbiotic relationship where each is relevant to and complimented by the other. When new work is displayed, Raue responds with an entirely new menu and delivers an immersive and singular experience. E
ach visit to the restaurant can be as striking as the last, reflecting the relentless reinvention and innovation often associated with Berlin.
The restaurant is housed in a disused brewery tucked away off Prenzlauer Allee just north of Alexander Platz. No one greets you on entering the building and as you follow the murmuring of voices through dimly lit and echoing chambers it’s easy to assume that you must have made a mistake. It feels more like a club than a restaurant, and the imposing interiors build a sense of anticipation. 
It quickly becomes clear that La Soupe Populaire is no ordinary restaurant.
Currently, the gallery is displaying work by Berlin artists Eva and Adele – an artistic couple who could be described as Berlin’s equivalent to Gilbert and George – and as a result the food is typical of Berlin, with a focus on the traditional foods of Brandenburg.
The menu is refreshingly simple and unpretentious for such a dramatic restaurant. The starter of Stulle, tatar with char caviar on German dark bread; the main course of Königsberger Klopse, which is essentially veal meatballs, mashed potatoes and beetroot; and the desert of a traditional German pastry quaintly named ‘Bee sting cake’ belie the achievements of Raue and his team. Good German white wines accompanied each course, with new German red wines also available and worth trying. The emphasis is on flavour and on quality, not on the ostentatious presentation or complex, outlandish dishes that occasionally lead other restaurants astray. You would be hard-pressed to find such a stimulating balance of aesthetic and gastronomic pleasures elsewhere.
The bar acts as a pleasing foil to the restaurant by its incorporation of nature into the otherwise rather severe industrial décor. In what 
appears to be a former engine room, a cherry blossom tree leans over one table while a taxidermy bear threatens another from a corner. The highly skilled bar staff work from beneath a display of thick grassland from which stuffed foxes appear here and there, and have at their disposal what is probably one of Berlin’s finest collections of rare and aged spirits.
La Soupe Populaire is a fine example of why Berlin is fast becoming Germany’s leading city for food and even, some argue, the most exciting in Europe. It is difficult to believe that [at the time of writing] the restaurant is barely four-weeks old and, already at full capacity, the efficiency and skill with which the restaurant is catering to its guests bear the mark of a much older establishment. This is a testament to both the restaurant’s success and Berlin’s eager acceptance of all that is new and different.
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