Bellmans

This unassuming corner bar is some way down Reichenbergerstrasse which keeps noise to a pleasant level. An ideal winter hidey-hole, its crumbling plaster walls and wooden tableware convey a feeling of somewhat faded grandeur. Berlin is the place for moody lighting, from the gentle yellow haze of its sodium street-lamps to the preference for candle-lit bars and Bellmans is certainly no exception, to which the stratified mounds of old wax testify. Opened by the excellent Renger-Patsch sommelier, they don’t lack in the hooch department: there’s a fantastic range of gins, tequilas and whiskies on mirrored shelves behind the bar. A mood of cosy conviviality reigns unless you annoy the sometimes-touchy barstaff in which case, consider yourself in cocktail-bar Siberia.