It’s been too long since your last summer vacation in Italy, and the next is still too far away. Suppose you don’t want to miss Italian delicacies and delicious drinks despite the icy temperatures, ring in the vacation season any time of year with these three spots. One place that immediately transports me to Italy is the Centro Italia supermarket. Centro Italia is a family-run business importing food from all over Italy since 1968. The first Berlin stores opened in Marienfelde and Charlottenburg in 1999 and the third in Prenzlauer Berg in 2009. The Prenzlauer Berg store (in particular) is where I like to spend a few hours on the weekend, browsing through the huge selection of Italian products, taste testing at the fresh food counters, and taking a break in the trattoria with pasta from the daily menu or a filled panini. Of course, you can get a quick espresso to go or sit down at a trattoria table with a Peroni beer and watch the people ordering at the counter. The handwritten signs with the latest specials, the smell of freshly baked bread and aged Parma ham, and the staff who greet you in Italian: nowhere else does Berlin feel so much like Italy. At Pappa E Ciccia, you can also leave your everyday life behind and take a break with fresh pasta. Initially, they served lunch in Skalitzer Straße and sold Italian classics in a delicatessen. Now they offer fresh pasta and antipasti in the evening in Schwedter Straße.
If you crave classic Italian cuisine, you’ve come to the right place. At Torstraße you’ll meet an urban zeitgeist and plenty of elegance. Cecconi’s, located through the main entrance of Soho House, also specializes in Italian dishes, especially homemade pasta and fish dishes. An open kitchen with a wood-fired oven, white tablecloths, marble floors and red leather sofas provide the perfect backdrop for exquisite dishes: lobster spaghetti, deep-fried calamari, eggplant parmigiana and tonnarelli cacio & pepe. Peroni Nastro Azzurro beer, brewed according to the original recipe since 1963, ensures light-heartedness and ease during your tour around Berlin’s Italy. Berlin can’t offer warm sunshine and sun loungers on the beach at the moment, but you don’t have to miss delicious food, refreshing beer or Italian hospitality.
Text: Robyn Steffen / Photos: Robert Rieger, Sophie Doering
Peroni
Please drink responsibly.
Centro Italia, Greifswalder Str.80C, 10405 Berlin–Prenzlauer Berg; map
Pappa E Ciccia, Schwedter Str.18, 10199 Berlin–Prenzlauer Berg; map
Cecconi’s, Torstr.1, 10199 Berlin–Mitte; map
@cecconisrestaurants
@pappa_e_ciccia_berlin
@centro.italia
