here & now

For all you hear about The Pale Blue Door, the last thing people talk about is the food. Strange, considering it’s a restaurant. Perhaps the setting and the entertainment are so delightfully distracting that guests forget to report what’s on their plate.

So to start with, the meal was delicious – simple, tasty and very filling. For the appetizer, a plate of garden salad and roast vegetables topped with a spicy vinaigrette, served with a wedge of Turkish bread (the vegetables are grown in the garden next door). Main course is a dish of thick slices of roast beef, the middle still slightly pink and the edges tender, topped with horseradish cream. The beef is accompanied by a hearty side-dish of soft-boiled potatoes and cabbage that is difficult to finish. For desert, a square of plum crumble and a dollop of sour cream – an unusual sweet-sour combination that makes your taste buds do a double-take before giving their approval.

But who comes here for the food?

The Pale Blue Door is a real door. It stands alone in its frame in the middle of an urban garden in Kreuzberg, Berlin. Through the door lies a fairytale village of patchwork huts and treehouses built of scrap material. Warm yellow lamplight glows through warped glass windows, carnival lights dangle between the ramshackle structures.

The village sprouted here in late July, assembled by a team of roving restaurateurs who travel the world looking for empty plots of land on which to construct their temporary wonderland. They have visited Santiago, Buenos Aires, London, and the Glastonbury festival.

Guests file in through the doorframe and are shown to their reserved table, either in the open courtyard or in one of the cubbyhouses that encloses it. My guest and I were given a small hut which looked down on the courtyard. At first we were disappointed to be separated from the buzz of the crowd below, yet when it started to rain we were happy to have a roof over our heads.

We ordered a pair of beers. They were delivered by a fascinating pulley-driven zipline which ran between our booth and the bar, spilling some of the contents as it bounced along (a worthy sacrifice for the thrill of the gimmick).

The show began in the courtyard: A young drag queen tramped around in an outrageous costume to some tune, extracting snickers from the crowd. She reappeared several times throughout the night dressed in skimpy underwear, huge grotesque plastic tits and large wigs. At one point she danced out a Tina Turner lampoon to a sped-up version of “Simply The Best” that ended with fart noises squelching over the track. It was a vicious parodying form of drag that mocked the genre and exploited it for laughs. Yet it was energetic if nothing else, and filled the wait between courses.

With dinner and the show behind us, the night shifted into a lively garden party with convivial chatter floating up into the air. Conversation flowed between the tables, the unusual setting creating interaction between strangers. All agreed it was an evening well spent.

The Pale Blue door was initially scheduled to end at the close of August, but has extended its season until mid September due to overwhelming demand. Most tables are already booked out; showing up and hoping for a cancellation may be the only way to get in before the restaurant packs up and moves on. Dinner costs €25 per person for three courses and a bottle of wine to share. Visit http://tonyhornecker.wordpress.com for more details.

The Pale Blue Door’s creative team are already planning their next adventure: They will create a mobile restaurant that folds out from the back of a large truck, travelling from Chile through Argentina and Brazil to Colombia. The epic culinary journey is planned for this coming January.