Berlin may not have the cachet of a global food capital, but it has long rewarded those willing to look closer. For years, Ernst stood out as one of the city’s most influential fine-dining restaurants: a nine-seat counter where chefs, night after night, built menus around ingredients sourced as locally as their own backyard and as broadly as Europe, filtered through a precise, Japanese-informed approach to technique. From their seats, diners watched it all unfold, as a kind of culinary jam session. “The ability to create new dishes with such technical precision at every service is remarkable,” says Jorge Muñoz, of OSA, featured in last week’s installment of the Food Chain.
Last November, Ernst closed its doors. It was an operation that demanded a great deal from its team, as Dylan Watson-Brawn, one of the chefs and co-founders, now reflects. “I opened Ernst when I was 24. I wasn’t ready for what it became,” he says, recalling the exhausting pace the restaurant eventually required. “It couldn’t run without me. I missed maybe four days in seven years.”
