by Cornelia Reiher

Japanese food is very popular in Berlin, and certain Japanese foods even have their own festivals. In October, I attended the opening of Sake Week and a rāmen festival. Since both events were held on the same day, it was a very exciting day full of interesting sights, delicious taste sensations and exciting encounters with people who are passionate about Japanese food and drink. According to their website, Sake Week is organized by the Sake Embassy, an organization that describes itself as a „liquid meditation movement“. The last Sake Week was held in 2022 in five cities with 50 events, while Sake Week 2023 featured 100 events in nine cities in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Slovakia.

After we had climbed the stairs to the opening event at a brewery, we were greeted with a “Japanese Radler” made from beer, yuzu sake and lemonade. After a short welcome, we were able to participate in sake tastings from two import companies that offered sake from different prefectures in Japan. The audience that had gathered for the event included people from the restaurant and retail industries, Japanese cultural organizations and their friends and supporters. I met restaurant owners, chefs and sake sommeliers who told me how they pair dishes with sake. They all participate in Sake Week by hosting special sake-themed events at their restaurants and bars. One restaurateur told me that she likes sake because she finds that most of her customers are already attuned to wine and are more open with sake because they don’t know it as well yet. With sake pairings, she has more leeway and guests can make new discoveries.

With different types of sake, fusion finger food and interesting conversations, the two hours went by way too fast and like the sake entrepreneurs who packed up their sake to travel to the rāmen festival, we had to head there too. However, on the way to the rāmen festival, it had started to rain and by the time we arrived, we were completely soaked. Despite the bad weather, there was a long line of people waiting to buy a ticket. Fortunately, we had purchased our tickets online and were able to walk right in. The event was designed as an outdoor event with various booths. When we arrived, people were crowding the few covered seats. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was good and most visitors enjoyed the Japanese food and drinks under the temporary rain shelters.

Since we were already wet, we looked around first. In addition to three stalls selling rāmen, there were other Japanese dishes such as takoyaki, taiyaki and okonomiyaki, a sake stall and a stall selling various Japanese handicrafts. One booth was set up in the style of Hakata Yatai. These food stalls are typical of street vendors in Fukuoka, a city in northern Kyushu. The food offered was appropriately tonkotsu rāmen, a specialty from this area also known as Hakata rāmen. The soup broth is based on pork bones and the dish is traditionally topped with sliced pork belly. We got in line and got a seat right by the cart.

While we bravely took our seats outside, most of the guests ordered rāmen to go and ate it under one of the few canopies. We held the umbrella above us and although it was a challenge to hold the chopsticks in one hand and the umbrella in the other, the noodles tasted delicious. Maybe because I had never eaten ramen at a yatai in the rain before. Several young Japanese men and women were working at the stall. Two girls took orders and cashed up, while the other employees prepared the ingredients, cooked the soup and served it. We sat right in front of the containers of ingredients, like eggs and scallions, and I hope my umbrella did not drip into it.

Later it cleared up and more people came to the festival area. But since we were still wet, we decided to look for a dessert and call it a day. We were lucky and bought the last vegan taiyaki with matcha cream and cherries and headed back to the next S-Bahn station, passing supermarkets, gas stations and car dealerships. It was an eventful day, and I was amazed at how many people from very different backgrounds are fascinated by Japanese food and have come just to eat rāmen and other Japanese dishes. At the same time, there is a growing number of non-Japanese entrepreneurs working to promote Japanese food and drink in Germany and I would like to learn more about what drives them.

by Cornelia Reiher

This blog is mostly about Japanese restaurants in Berlin, but since a Japanese-style cafeteria opened at our own university in December 2022, this post will feature Shokudō Cafeteria (shokudō means cafeteria in Japanese), which is inspired by Japan and offers fusion cuisine. It is located very close to the Institute of Japanese Studies and is in the same building as the former vegetarian cafeteria. So it still offers vegetarian and vegan dishes, but in a Japanese way. Although most Japanese dishes include dashi, a Japanese fish broth, all dishes are actually vegetarian or even vegan, according to the staff.

Koi and Mount Fuji adorn the walls of the new Shokudō cafeteria
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

When I visited the new cafeteria for the first time with my colleagues, I was surprised at how much the place had changed. The interior design is heavily based on Japanese motifs, including a mural of Mount Fuji, koi, and pine trees. In one part of the cafeteria, there is a zashiki dining area, where customers sit on cushions on a platform with a tatami-like rug and eat from low tables. In Japan, this also means taking off your shoes before stepping onto the tatami mats, and most students do this, but not all are familiar with this custom. There are also regular tables, but the zashiki dining area is very popular, and we were lucky to find a seat. People seem to enjoy this different way of eating and also use it as a place to rest, chat with friends, or do their homework.

Dining under pine trees and eating noodle soup with chopsticks
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

The food includes existing Japanese dishes such as different types of maki sushi, gyōza, rice or noodles like rāmen and udon, but also their own inventions like edamame burger or pumpkin gratin with edamame. Sometimes regular dishes are simply renamed to seem more Japanese, or an ingredient typical of Japan is added, such as pumpkin soup with soy sauce. While the salad bar is mostly unchanged except for the addition of wasabi dressing and kimchi, desserts are also inspired by Japanese food culture and often include matcha or sesame seeds, such as chocolate mousse with matcha. Because the cafeteria serves a large number of people every day and must offer vegetarian or vegan dishes at a reasonable price, the ingredients are quite different from those used for the same dishes in Japan. However, compared to the average cafeteria experience, the food was nice.

Rāmen, edamame burger and maki sushi are examples of the food served at Shokudō
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2023

More than the food itself, the experience of eating with chopsticks, sitting on the tatami-like floor, and talking about the Japanese interior was a nice change from my usual lunch break. Still, many questions remain, such as: Why was Japanese food chosen as a theme for this cafeteria over all other popular Asian cuisines? Why was the interior designed this way and what do students think of this new cafeteria? How many different dishes can this cafeteria offer in the long run, or will it mainly offer noodle soup and sushi? I am looking forward to the course in the summer semester on Berlin’s Japanese foodscape and will definitely explore these and other questions with our students.

by Cornelia Reiher

Over the years I have interviewed many people who work in Berlin’s Japanese foodscape. Most of them are Japanese and many did not come to Berlin to open a Japanese eatery or to work in one. The reasons for moving to Berlin and the life stories of Japanese men and women who own, cook or serve in Japanese eateries in Berlin are diverse. Few are trained chefs and even fewer had originally planned to work in or open a Japanese restaurant in Germany. What struck me is that many of my research participants came to Berlin to study art, work as artists or pursue a career in fashion or the music industry. Another interesting observation is that Berlin was often not their first place of residence abroad, but many had lived in other places like London, Paris or New York before coming to Berlin. In this post, I will introduce people who moved to Berlin to study or perform art and began to work in Berlin’s Japanese foodscape for various reasons, with diverse goals and for different periods of time.

Many of the Japanese cooks, restaurant owners, pastry chefs or service staff in Berlin’s Japanese eateries are (former) musicians, painters, dancers, designers, make-up artists or tailors. A Japanese waitress I interviewed this year came to Berlin to take dance lessons and look for a job as a dancer. She was interested in the work of Japanese artists living in Berlin and visited the city for a week in 2017 before moving here on a working holiday visa in 2022. She had previously lived in London, then returned to Japan during the covid pandemic, and when she finally decided to move to Berlin, the Japanese artists she already knew helped her find a place to live. To earn a living, she works as a waitress in a Japanese restaurant. She found the job through MixB (Mix Board Classified), a Japanese-language classifieds website in Germany that many Japanese restaurants use to post jobs. She had already worked in restaurants in Japan and the UK and perceives her job as a way to earn money, but also enjoys working and socializing with other Japanese people and learning more about Japanese cuisine.

A Japanese man I interviewed this year cooks in a popular Japanese restaurant. He is a painter and attended an art school in Japan.  When he came to Berlin in 2019, it was his first time living abroad and he didn’t know German. His motivation to live in Europe was his interest in art. He wanted to visit museums and exhibitions and would have preferred to go to France or the United Kingdom, but the cost of living in Germany was lower. He applied for a working holiday visa, and when he arrived in Germany, he first took a language course. He also found a job and a shared apartment through MixB and began working in a restaurant on a working holiday visa although he had no previous experience working in a restaurant. But he was trained on the job and after two years now trains others. After the visa expired, his boss applied for a work visa and he now works five days a week, but wishes he had more time to paint. Working in a Japanese restaurant pays the bills, but he would rather have more time for his art.

While the two people I have introduced above try to find a balance between their jobs in the Japanese foodscape and their own artistic ambitions, there are also Japanese artists who have found a new profession in gastronomy. After a career as a musician or dancer, they have opened a restaurant or café and run it full-time. Some of these artists have completed additional training as chefs or pastry chefs in Japan, France or Germany. The different careers of Japanese artists in Berlin who work in a restaurant to finance their studies or artistic ambitions vary in terms of duration and outcome. While some stay in Berlin for only six months and then return to Japan, others stay permanently and a part-time job in a restaurant becomes a full-time job, while others give up art as a profession and start their own restaurants or cafes. In summary, the experiences of Japanese working in Berlin’s Japanese food landscape are diverse, and examining the relationship between the life course of Japanese migrants in Berlin and the city’s Japanese foodscape is an interesting endeavor to understand the city’s culinary dynamics.

by Cornelia Reiher

Berlin is experiencing an unusually hot summer right now, but there are plenty of ways to cool off. One of them is refreshment at one of the capital’s Japanese cafes and eateries. In July, I took a friend, a food journalist from the U.S., on a little tour of Berlin’s Japanese food culture. We started with iced matcha latte and matcha tiramisu at a Japanese bakery in the afternoon. A group of Japanese customers enjoyed the lazy afternoon in the shaded plaza in front of the bakery. The store had also set up a tanabata decoration. The Tanabata festival celebrates the coming together of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi, two lovers separated by the Milky Way, in July. In modern Japan, people generally celebrate Tanabata by writing wishes, sometimes in the form of poems, on small pieces of paper (tanzaku) and hanging them on bamboo. We were surprised by the multilingual tanzaku and touched because many of them expressed the wish for peace against the background of the war in Ukraine.

Tanzaku in multiple languages hanging from an improvised wish tree in a Japanese bakery in Berlin.
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

As we sat outside talking about how much Japanese restaurants in Berlin have changed over the past two decades, my friend told me how surprised she was at the wide selection of Japanese food now available in Japanese and Asian supermarkets. I took the cue and we visited a travel agency that now sells Japanese food, sweets, spices and sake. The Japanese staff enthusiastically introduced different types of sake and even shared recipes with us, telling us about their favorite foods and their way of cooking. This conversation about sake made us want a drink, and after passing several Japanese restaurants where customers were sitting outside enjoying a cold Japanese beer, we stopped at an izakaya and ordered drinks. The menu offered not only a wide selection of alcoholic beverages from Japan, but also cocktails and a haiku by Matsuo Bashō on each page. We ordered cocktails with yuzu and shiso leaves and enjoyed the creativity of fusion cuisine.

Iced matcha latte, matcha tiramisu and yuzu collin.
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

Looking for a place to eat dinner, we passed a number of Japanese restaurants that were closed for the summer vacations. But others were also closed due to lack of staff. Many of the Japanese restaurants rely on part-time staff who come to Germany on working holiday visas and often return to Japan in the summer, so summer was a difficult time even before the pandemic. But the Covid 19 pandemic made travel more difficult and added to restaurants‘ problems finding staff. But after a short walk, we found a Japanese restaurant that was open, and we were able to not only enjoy a delicious dinner, but also end our culinary expedition with cool azuki and matcha ice cream and goma purin.

Azuki and matcha icecream and goma purin
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

by Cornelia Reiher

After our online interview experience with students from Seikei University and an interview in the classroom, our group visited a Japanese restaurant to interview the manager and an employee who is one of the course participant’s friends. As he happens to work at Cocolo Rāmen in Kreuzberg he was so kind to agree to be interviewed and asked the manager to join in as well. We traveled to Kreuzberg together and when we arrived at Cocolo in the early afternoon, most of the customers ate outside enjoying the warm and sunny weather. After putting together two tables for our rather large group inside the restaurant, students started to ask the questions they had prepared.

Cocolo Rāmen in Kreuzberg belongs to the Kuchi group run by the famours Vietnamese restaurateur The Duc Ngo who owns several Asian and Japanese restaurants in Berlin and Frankfurt. Cocolo Kreuzberg opened in 2013 and moved to another location within Kreuzberg in 2019. The restaurant’s interior is cozy and rustic. Everything from the wooden tables and benches where we were seated to the bar is hand-crafted. Students’ questions covered the personal biographies of our interview partners as well as the restaurant’s menu, staff, guests and the Corona-19 pandemic. We learned that the manager, Mr. Sumida, had already lived in Germany for more than twenty years, while Mr. Kuwahara came to Berlin only three years ago. While Sumida san manages the restaurant and has worked there from the beginning, Kuwahara san mainly works in the kitchen and makes rāmen and other dishes.

While the restaurant is now mainly frequented by locals who live in the neighborhood, before the pandemic, Cocolo was also a popular destination for tourists. Not only the guests have changed due to the pandemic, but also the restaurant’s sales strategy. While Cocolo was closed during the first lockdown, they started takeout services during the second lockdown in November 2020. As in many other Japanese restaurants in Berlin, the menu changed to adjust dishes for takeout. They added more rice dishes like donburi to the menu, for example. Another pandemic-related problem is that Cocolo, like so many other restaurants, had and still has difficulties finding staff.

After the interview, we ordered rāmen and enjoyed the variety of different tastes. Sumida san and his team take pride in the handmade ingredients, including miso used for miso rāmen. All ingredients are fresh and no frozen ingredients are used. This is reflected in the great taste of all the dishes we tried. Some of the students ordered the vegan and vegetarian rāmen variations. While vegetarian rāmen was on the menu since the restaurant opened, vegan rāmen was just added a few years ago. Sumida san was so nice to treat us to appetizers including delicious gyōza, edamame, karaage and horensō gomaae. Gochisōsama deshita!!!

Compared to the other interviews we have conducted so far, doing the interview in our research participants’ workplace had many advantages, but we also dealt with new challenges today. One advantage was that we could ask questions about what we observed, including interior and staff. If we would not have visited the restaurant, we would not have seen the noodle machine and watched how rāmen noodles were cut and we could not have tasted the food ourselves. Through being in the restaurant, we were able to feel the atmosphere firsthand, watch staff at work and listen to the background music that included Japanese enka and pop songs.  One disadvantage, however, was exactly this background music for recording the interview. However, it was a good experience of yet another and different interview situation and reminded us of the importance of taking notes. The most exciting thing of course was eating rāmen together after the interview. Thank you so much Sumida san and Kuwahara san for your time, for the hospitality and for treating us to the delicious appetizers!!!!

by Cornelia Reiher

While group visits to restaurants were difficult last summer due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this year we were able to do our annual field trip to a Japanese restaurant again to practice participant observation. After an introduction to participant observation in the classroom, we traveled from campus to one of the many Japanese restaurants in Berlin to have lunch together. I asked students to observe interactions between staff and customers, work processes and division of labor in the restaurant and the interaction of the employees with each other, how Japaneseness is staged in the restaurant and what hygiene measures against Corona are still in place and how they are implemented by employees and guests.

When we entered the restaurant, we saw hand sanitizers and a perspex partition wall at the counter and waitresses wearing masks. However, since wearing masks is not mandatory in restaurants anymore, most of the guests did not wear masks when they entered the restaurant. In addition, self-services like hot water refills and soy sauce on restaurant tables were finally back. During the pandemic, the restaurant started a bustling take-out business and when we visited the restaurant, many people came in to pick up food. In addition, the restaurant recently began working with one of the many food delivery services in town, so delivery service employees would come in and out of the restaurant to pick up deliveries.

After a delicious lunch, students began to observe, wander around the restaurant and take notes and photographs. They also documented observations relevant to their individual research projects. The food labeling group took pictures of the menu and paid attention to the labeling of vegan and vegetarian dishes. The group working on Japanese sweets in Berlin ordered mochi and discovered a separate mochi menu. And the group working on Japanese alcohol and izakaya in Berlin checked the menu for alcoholic beverages offered at the restaurant.

The field trip was a great experience because students did not only practice observing and taking field notes but also had the chance to socialize with each other. Many courses at FUB had just moved back to onsite teaching this semester and some of the students did not have the chance to get to know their peers on campus and to meet outside of the university. I hope that this course will not only help students master qualitative research methods and put them into practice, but also create social and enjoyable experiences for them.

by Cornelia Reiher

On June 3, we conducted our first onsite interview. We invited Rainer Stobbe from H.I.S. Japan Premium Food & Travel to talk with him about his job and how the H.I.S. Berlin office changed from a travel agency to a shop selling Japanese food during the Covid-19 pandemic. Students had prepared questions in class the week before Rainer came to visit us on FU campus. They took turns asking questions and learned a great deal about handling time constraints, recording and taking notes during an interview. Everybody was particularly delighted because Rainer brought some senbei from the shop.

Interview questions covered the shop and its history, customers and products, collaborations with other Japanese food retailers, restaurants and producers, the experience during the Covid-19 pandemic and future plans with regard to food. We learned that the Berlin office is one of three H.I.S. offices in Germany that sell food now. Rainer was hired to build the Berlin branch of H.I.S. It opened in 2019, but when the pandemic hit and travel to Japan was (and still is mainly) restricted, the stores began to sell Japanese food. In Berlin, H.I.S. sells sweets, tea, sake, soy sauce, rice and seasonings. At times H.I.S. also sold Bento boxes produced by a Japanese restaurant from the area and they regularly offer handmade mochi a former restaurateur creates exclusively for the store. Because the shop offers many products other Asian food stores and supermarkets do not sell, many Japanese customers frequent the shop regularly.

The interview provided unique insights into the workings of food retail and labeling and was a great experience in terms of interview practice. It also provided important information students will use for their own research projects about Japanese food in Berlin. This interview was conducted in German, but the interviews to come will be conducted in Japanese. After meeting Rainer, students were inspired to visit H.I.S. Japan Premium Food & Travel and buy some of their favorite sweets and seasonings from Japan we all have missed so much during the travel ban. As long as the future of individual travel to Japan is uncertain, the shop provides a great alternative to those who do not want to do without delicacies from Japan. Thank you, Rainer for coming the long way to Dahlem and for sharing your experiences with us!

by Cornelia Reiher

Running a restaurant is a complex endeavor. Moving a restaurant from one place to another is even more challenging. One of the Japanese restaurants we have worked with in the past years just reopened in another part of the city and I had the chance to talk to the owner, chef and staff before and during the opening day. The main reason to move the restaurant to another location was the small size of the old restaurant. At times, they had to send people away, because the place was too crowded. In addition, the neighborhood had changed. Many shops and restaurants closed down and regular customers moved away. The owner wanted to relocate to a more vibrant location with more tourists and affluent customers. The new neighborhood is indeed vibrant and the restaurant is now located between galleries and hip eateries.

Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

The new place used to be an Italian restaurant that had to be refurbished and electricity had to be completely renewed. Most of the renovation work was done by the owner and his team. When we visited the place two months before the opening, the restaurant’s owner was gluing strips of wood to the wall. He told me that a Japanese friend took care of the interior design and that they had already ordered lamps, decoration objects and Japanese calligraphy for the walls. In addition, the restaurant’s chef brought back some decorative items from her trip to Japan. Both, the owner and chef, were particularly enthusiastic about their new tatami room where they envisioned sake tastings and tea events to take place in the future.

Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

The restaurant’s chef told me that months before the reopening of the restaurant she was already busy with preparing a new menu, adjusting the kitchen to her and her staff’s needs and hiring people. Since the restaurant is much larger than the old place, they needed more staff. This proved to be quite challenging during the pandemic because she prefers to work with people who speak Japanese. Fortunately, they found two Japanese women who flew in from Japan and London, the latter entered Germany with a working holiday visa. With six people in the kitchen, the chef had to reorganize work routines and schedules and train the new employees. She also changed the menu. Putting new dishes on the menu also meant calculating costs for ingredients and setting new prizes. The chef remembered this as a rather stressful time.

Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

The week before the opening, the chef was really nervous and then the electricity stopped working. However, it could be fixed before the opening day and despite difficulties like this, the restaurant opened as planned. The restaurants’ team had invited friends, business partners, regular customers and a photographer. When we arrived, the restaurant was decorated with balloons. Many friends and customers brought flowers and other presents. I was amazed at how much the place had changed since I last visited. Some Japanese friends helped out as waitresses and wore kimono or happi. The restaurant was crowded and guests appreciated the new menu very much. Takoyaki and matcha fondue were particularly popular. I hope that this great opening makes up for all the hard work the team put into renovating and preparing the restaurant for its reopening and that customers will frequent the place as much as the old restaurant.

by Cornelia Reiher

Over the past six years, the number of Japanese eateries in Berlin has not only increased, but they have also diversified in terms of menus, ownership, prices and customers. While only a few restaurants closed during the pandemic, some moved to other parts of the city where owners expect more affluent customers and turnover while others have changed their opening hours. According to some of our research participants, food entrepreneurs and chefs realized that they prefer to work less in order to improve their work-life balance and that this is also feasible from an economic perspective. Therefore, some Japanese-style eateries are only open on weekends now and many have reduced their menus for economic reasons. In addition, take-out services established during the pandemic are still in place and this service has changed eating practices from eating out to eating at home more often for many people.

Window displays of Japanese restaurants in Berlin
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

Japanese restaurants in Berlin are still mostly family-owned neighborhood restaurants run by Japanese entrepreneurs or part of restaurant chains owned by people with diverse nationalities ranging from German to Vietnamese. Most sell food they call Japanese for an average price. The menu often features home-style food (katei ryōri), noodle soups or sushi. There also exists a small group of high-end gourmet restaurants, but currently, the Michelin guide only features two Japanese restaurants in Berlin. Catering services operated by self-employed Japanese who also sell their food at markets, online or in pop-up stores is another field of activity for Japanese food entrepreneurs who contribute to the city’s culinary diversity.

Restaurant signs and decoration of Japanese restaurants in Berlin
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

Different ownerships of Japanese restaurants also brought about changes in the way restaurants welcome and seat their customers. Some food entrepreneurs who ran Japanese eateries in the US before coming to Berlin introduced counters and queues to Berlin, a practice that is rather uncommon in Germany. Instead of taking a free seat right away, customers have to approach the person behind the counter who tells them to wait for a certain time and then stand in line waiting. This style has become more common in the hip and popular districts of the city and makes these places look more desirable because of the long waiting lines.

Communication with customers: restaurant windows show awards for best eatery issued by several gourmet and city magazines in Berlin and some restaurants display political messages
Copyright © Cornelia Reiher 2022

All Japanese restaurateurs in Berlin we talked to emphasized that they wanted to serve delicious food to their customers. They have high standards with regard to the quality of the food they create. All embrace local and fresh ingredients, but adjust it to their needs as Japanese food entrepreneurs, workers and chefs abroad and acknowledge that Japanese food served in Berlin is always fusion to a certain extent. Thus, the substitution of ingredients is a common and creative experience and practice among Japanese food producers in Berlin.

While the number of Covid-19 infections is still high in Berlin, restaurants operate based on the 2G+ rule I have introduced in my previous post. However, unlike in the two lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, customers can enjoy Japanese food in restaurants and many do so. I am looking forward to follow-up on future changes and challenges for food entrepreneurs and workers in Berlin’s Japanese foodscapes together with my students in the upcoming summer term.