Germany - 8
More colour at, or from, The Adlon. The 2026 annual Festival of Lights runs 9–18 October, generally 7–11 pm nightly – the Brandenburg Gate is lit up other times (7th October 2026 it featured the Israeli flag, a poignant reminder that the sobering Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe usually simply called the Holocaust Memorial, is only five minutes’ walk from both the Gate and the hotel.)
Dine in the hotel’s French-German Brasserie Quarré looking out at the Brandenburg Gate, a mere 200m away, that no other theatrical decoration is needed. The Gate’s topped by the heavily illuminated Quadriga of Victory, sculpted by Johann Gottfried Schadow for 1793. It was seized by Napoleon 1806 and somehow hauled to Paris – no helpful DHL in those days - and returned here in 1814 by Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher. Tonight,
Chef Rico Kägebein came out and explained the extremely comprehensive menu, which included raw, vegetarian, French, German and a wienerschnitzel. After a portobello amuse the starter had to be chef’s recommended Truffle Beef Tataki, raw marinated and seared beef fillet, with truffle-ponzu-dressing, sesame, and coriander, which perfectly preceded a veggie main, Acquerello risotto, wild herb pesto, fine peas, green asparagus, shaved Parmesan. And that, dear reader, preceded a collapse into bed and hours of much-needed sleep.
Breakfast is a clever operation. Monday to Friday it’s on the upper first floor level, a succession of meeting and restaurant rooms where people can flow from one to the other. At weekends, the meal stays down on the ground floor, but on working days it gives lots of opportunity for quiet tables, and as a result there are meetings going on here, there, everywhere. Two people here, eight people there, and nobody interrupts anybody else. It is a really copious spread, impossible to count how many buffet stations there are. You're offered a choice of little drinks as you go in. Tables are set with linens, beautiful floral Dibbern china on sea-green Chilewich type mats. Coffee,offered straightaway, is brought from a dedicated coffee station with four women manning it. There are so many staff. Every time you put something down, it's whisked away and food supplies are replenished immediately. Yes, other places have masses of different fruits and yogurts and breads, but who else has such a supply of different caviars? No extra charge, nor for champagnes too, real champagnes. Champagne. There are cakes: marble cake, marzipan cake, lemon cake, and as for the cold meats, there must be ten different kinds, including a chicken ham. Everything is exactly labelled. There's a plentiful supply of Financial Times and New York Times as you go in.
At departure time, there arrived a male model of a young blond local bellboy (‘I joined six months ago because I love gastronomy and hospitality and my parents know someone at Kempinski’). He and Girlahead’s Rimowa disappeared. Downstairs the boss of The Adlon, a magician named Christian Hirt was waiting to make sure this visitor did actually leave – and he personally pushed the waiting car’s front seat back to accommodate back seat legs. This is indeed the German capital’s base for the very top, who expect and appreciate personalisation with style.
