a little slice of the twenties
I may risk being cut out of the young and hip scene with this admission, but I occasionally like to sit down in a cafe which isn't young and hip, overflowing with armchairs and artists. Sometimes I enjoy a different ambience, a hint of the twenties and thirties which can be found existing sedately in the Café Odeon near Friedrichstrasse.
Underneath the S-bahn line, heading east along Georgenstrasse in the direction of museum island, are nestled a variety of restaurants, cafes and an antique market. While the other cafes cater mostly to the student crowd of the nearby Humboldt University, the Café Odeon lies cocooned in the antique stalls. The curved ceiling formed by the S-Bahn line running overhead is entirely covered with old advertising and street signs from the early 1900s and classic music of the era is piped through in a quietly restrained manner.
The café is always peaceful. I've never seen more than a dozen people in it at any one time and it is the perfect place to sit back and reflect. To soak up the refined air of an earlier age. You can't help but yearn for a time when men could be called dapper as a compliment and women were wearing lace gloves and enameled brooches.
Lunch is reasonably priced and filling. Potato soup with sausage, quiche and large salads grace the menu, while a cabinet at the bar houses a selection of cakes. If you want to be daring try the Germknödel, a very large and sweet yeast dumpling, which I take whenever I find it. It isn't that common around this city and is well worth the experience.
The Odeon is a slice of an earlier time and one which is rarely recreated in modern Berlin, unlike the fifties, sixties, seventies, and now (rather unfortunately) the eighties. If do you stop by, have a look for me. I'll be the one in the corner wearing a fur stole.