Forget mass-processed mystery meats and generic Bratwurst! Let these Berlin artisan butchers show you how the sausage is made.
Kumpel & Keule
Hendrik Haase is the man behind the Gestalten coffee-table book Crafted Meats, and his new shop in Markthalle IX, a joint effort with 27-year-old hotshot butcher Jörg Förstera, offers just that. Prime cuts are displayed just so on white platters, accentuated with a sprig of rosemary here or a lemon slice there. You can watch the entire sausage-making process through a glass pane – and with gleaming stainless steel meat grinders and ingredients parcelled out in little bowls, never has the process of stuffing animal bits into intestines looked so beautiful. Their Italian-style salsiccia (photo) is redolent of wine and garlic and, most of all, pig: the black-spotted heritage breed, raised on acorns, fruit and organic grains on a farm in Schwäbisch Hall. It’s delicious but delicate; if you don’t want to risk overcooking the somewhat pricey links (€1.79/100g), ask the K&K guys to fry one up for you on the spot (€3).
Markthalle IX, Eisenbahnstr. 42-43, Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Görlitzer Bahnhof, Tue, Fri 10-20, Wed 10-18, Thu 10-22, Sat 10-18
The Sausage Man Never Sleeps
Former freezer worker and food safety advisor Simon Ellery’s path to homemade Wurst came through a €9 meat grinder purchased at Mauerpark shortly after moving to Berlin in 2010; now a bona-fide Fleischermeister, the New Zealander grinds his sausage in a Prenzlauer Berg butcher shop on Thursdays and sells it at Markthalle IX on Saturdays. His signature jalapeño-cheddar and apple-sage varieties (€16/kg) combine the densely meaty consistency of German brats with what he calls “New Zealand-style” flavours; he also satisfies Berlin Brits with black pudding and streaky bacon. Not to mention supplying restaurants with just about any kind of sausage they ask for: Chorizo for Santa Maria Eastside’s brunches? American hot dogs for Kreuzberg whisky ‘n’ wiener joint Bourbon Dogs? The name may have come from a jokey song he wrote once, but this Sausage Man’s endeavours leave him little time for shut-eye indeed.
Orders and locations at www.thesausagemanneversleeps.com
The Fleischerei
It sounds like a wacky sitcom plot: an Irish Neuberliner teams up with the German proprietor of an old-school butcher shop in Neukölln to help him adapt to his now-gentrified surroundings. Will Cormac O’Neill’s Saturday evening pop-ups, featuring pulled pork, squid-ink hot dog buns and back bacon, save Sascha Baschin’s 70-year-old Fleischerei Tölle from closure? Who knows, but in the meantime we can enjoy what might be the first British-style Cumberland sausage made in Berlin (€12/kg), made by Baschin according to O’Neill’s specifics. It’s 85 percent pork (from a farm in Neuruppin, Brandenburg) spiced with pepper, sage, mace and coriander and cut with rusk, a breadcrumb-like binding agent that gives the sausage an especially soft, juicy texture. After a holiday break he’s poised to resume the pop-ups again, so check Facebook for O’Neill’s whereabouts.
Wildenbruchstr. 84, Neukölln, U-Bhf Rathaus Neukölln, Sat 12-20; www.facebook.com/thefleischer
