BERLIN NIGHTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 13 July 1929, Page 11

BERLIN NIGHTS

51, 000,000 RESTAURANT WONDER EATING IN MANY LANGUAGES The idea that the Germans cat nothing but sauerkraut and sausage is entirely a mistake, says a writer in a London paper. In no country in the world, not even in France, is eating and drinking taken so seriouslv as it is in Germany. I do not say* that lrmc eating is an art, but most certainly it is not a pastime; it is, so to speak, a whole time job. I have many times assisted at meals in Germany which began at lunch but which meandered on until they trod hard on the liceis of dinner; and from dinner time to supper time was merely a question of eating. We have with us now something cn-> tirely new in the eating line. It is called the Hans Valeria,nd, meaning in English the House of the Fatherland, and it stands on the Potsdannnerplatz, which is right in the heart of Berlin. NATIVE MUSICIANS The famous firm of Kempinski, which is, so to say, the Lyons of Berlin. already possessed two large restaurants i‘ll Berlin, but now with the Hans Vaterland they have created something which I do not think could exist anywhere outside Germany. Under*one .roof there are no fewer than seven restaurants, all with native food and native musicians. You can, especially if you are a German, spend a happy day eating and drinking in many languages. The large stone building and the fittings cost more than a million pounds, and the money was supplied by the Deutsche Bank. Everybody predicted failure but the Kempiuskis have never beard the word.

The building is, of course, fully licensed, and it keeps open until three every morning. One pays one mark (a shilling) to go in, and they are taking five thousand marks a day entrance money, so if one presumes that two thousand of the’five thousand eat and drink and spend an average of six shillings per head, one can gauge the amount of money that tho restaurant must be taking.

SANDWICH COUNTERS . The. 1 interior walls look as if they were built from solid silver and the flood lighting is dazzling. The mark one, pays to go in entitles one to leavef one’s hat, coat and stick in any of the many cloakrooms.. Lifts are flying up and down between the ground and the five floors. Scattered about here and there are sandwich counters where one can make a light meal should one feel faint while going from one restaurant to another. Let us examine the first, which represents the terrace of a restaurant overlooking the Rhine. An orchestra is playing and. the waiters are serving dishes native to the district. We look down over the vineyards and see the LOrelei in the distance.. ' Tiny steamboats are moving up and down the river. Every hour, punctually according to plan, it grows dark; it thunders and the lightning flashes and then thpre is a real rainstorm over 'the Rhine. Then the sun shines, again, and you prder another bottle of Berncastler. ‘ Cross to the opposite side and you are in Bavaria; you are looking at the snow-covered Bavarian Alps. Some one is yodelling, and the orchestra is playing Bavarian lieder. The waitresses, in native costume, dash about with glasses of foaming Munich beer. • Come a step higher and you are in Vienna. The band is playing a dreamy waltz and you look as from a height at Vienna by night. Tiny little illuminated trains cross the.bridges spanning the Danube. It is perfect. WILD WEST BAR And I have not exhausted the programme yet, for here is a Wild West bar. All the barmen and waiters are in cowboy clothes, but a,, realist who tried to fire bis revolver was removed by force. No matter what it is, eating, drinking, swimming, or dealing in wild animals, everything. they do in Germany they do oh a colossal scale. They are spending millions on amusing themselves, but I think they are trying to hide. from the bogey which frightens them—Reparations. So far they have been' paying the Allies with money borrowed from America. Now the day of reckoning is approaching and Germany eats, drinks and is merry because to-morrow she pays. *