I love trying new brunch places and specialty restaurants. Looking at my options here in Berlin, I found this quirky place. It is called "Wilde Matilde" and during the day it is a patisserie and in the evening a cocktail bar, event restaurant, and cabaret. When you enter you first see the bar area, an old colorful circus or chain carousel. The main color of the restaurant is pink with big velvet armchairs and benches and white bistro tables. The staff are all wearing petticoats, ruffles and suspenders. There are oversized pink and white striped curtains on the windows, tied to the side. It all feels like out of the roaring 20s.
The restaurant is located very centrally in a nice area downtown Berlin ("Mitte"), within the Nikolaiviertel, next to the red town hall (Rotes Rathaus) and with view of Berlin's cathedral church (Berlin Dom).
Patisserie
You do notice that they are a patisserie, as there is a tall cake stand right at the entrance with lots of colorful and extravagant cakes. They do have the obligatory Black Forest Cake, but also very unique ones. They also offer a sweet afternoon tea with lots of cakes and candy. And, as part of the weekend brunch, they have an additional candy/sweet buffet and little cute colorful three tiered étageres with candy and fruit slices.Weekend Brunch
The brunch buffet is located in the back room of the restaurant. There is a big white table placed at the side wall with multiple cubicle panels on top where you can find the food. The back wall of the room is covered by book shelves with actual books in it. Some of the shelves, however, are cleaned out and filled with further food options.They offer:
- Bread station with crunchy seeded breads with some additional rolls in baskets placed in the shelves within the wall
- Salad bar including lentil salads, rice salads, potato salads, bean and chickpea salads, etc. My favorite was an Asian salad with very tender beef.
- Yoghurt bar with fresh fruits
- Deli section with different deli meats, cheeses, spreads and smoked salmon
- Warm dishes including fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, curry sausage, and kaiserschmarrn
- Candy buffet within the book shelves behind glass doors with chocolate and rice pudding, red jelly, cakepops, candy, cookies, etc.
- Cute three tiered étageres filled with little cake cubes, cakepops, cookies, eclairs and excotic fruit slices
It was a very pleasurable experience. The restaurant was cute, unique, colorful and intersting. I also enjoyed the buffet. While most of the food was quite common, I did really enjoy the very flavorful and diverse salad bar. Another highlight were the colorful three tiered candy étageres that just looked so adorable. They also served the tea in nice little romantic tea pots (the pot is actually sitting on top of the cup). Unfortunately, the orange juice is not fresh pressed. Also, some of the staff had quite an unpleasant attitude.
However, all in all, I would highly recommend it, at least for a one time experience, especially when you get the 50% off coupons on groupon for the brunch :)