Restaurant Sphere

An obvious tourist destination, but I was pleasantly surprised by the food. I chose the menü 1, which included a fantastic app (surf and turf) consisting of steak tartare with a jumbo shrimp, some foie gras, and a smoked salmon sorbet (sounds strange but was amazing). Entrée was halibut with a red pesto and tempura veggies. I thoroughly enjoyed this meal as did my partner who had a salad and sauerbraten. I really liked that chefs food has a French style with German flavors. As for price and service. It was a little pricey, but as with everything you are also paying for the experience. Service was snappy and friendly (by European standards). I will come back here for another great meal the next time I’m in Berlin.

What can I say, the views of the very grey Berlin on an equally grey December day were surprising good. And went some way towards making up for the extremely over priced lunch.
While the food was tasty I don’t think it was quite up to standard to justify the € 90 bill (baring in mind we had already paid € 47 for 2 people admission fee to the viewing tower and reserve a window seat!!)
We both had soup to start, I had the pumpkin soup and he had the tomato soup. Mine was very tasty but the portion was very small.
For mains I had salmon with garlic & chilli pasta. Like it was tasty but not amazing either. He had the beef tenderloin and dear God it was tiny! I mean teensy and it came served with 2 fancy rosti type things, again not substantial enough to satisfy.
We also had 2 glasses of house white. Decent enough wine.
It was cool novelty to sit by the window and literally watch the world go by while having lunch. But at the guts of € 150 all in (food & admission fee) I was not over awed. Its no top of the Empire State!!!

Wow what a view was my first thought. We sad down at our prebooked table by the window. We had a ticket for «Herbstfrühstück» which was obvious that it was prepared in advance as the water melon on top of the slices of cheese had watered the cheese and made it too wet. Luckily there was another kind of cheese as well. In all a pretty basic continental breakfast serving.
I would not go here for the food but for the lovely and rotating view with descriptions of what you pass by. It gives you a great view of Berlin especially if you go and explore the city afterwards.

Visiting Berlin my boyfriend, his brother, and his wife, and I decided this would definitely be a good place worth visiting. Even with restaurant reservations you must pay to go up the elevator, it was about 10 euros. The restaurant was very good, the food was very delicious and worth it. It was pricey, but I did expect that going into the meal. The service was bad. Our server barely catered to us, took forever to get our drinks, and made us move tables after our entrée and before our dessert. They made us move tables because they were trying to close soon and they wanted to clean the table we were initially sitting at.
The food and view were well worth it though. I had the ravioli and my boyfriend had the salmon pasta and both were delicious. It was amazing to be able to enjoy your meal while looking out at the view of Berlin. During dinner service we did rotate a few times and we got to see all of the night lights in Berlin… which was beautiful.
If you have time and are in Berlin I do recommend gong to the TV tower and going to the top. It is a view that you cannot get from anywhere else!

This iconic monument is a place one should visit in Berlin. The view is amazing, and having a meal in the restaurant made it more special.
Regular tickets for the elevator are € 12.50, but splurge and get the VIP tickets for € 19.50! The VIP tickets gets you to the front of the line and a guaranteed window seat at the restaurant above the observation level, which is the whole point of dining upstairs, isn’t it?
If you want to save some money on the food, go during lunch time. Their lunch menu was quite nice, and if you don’t like it, they will allow you to order from the full menu as well. I ordered a baked potato with roast beef and spring greens. It wasn’t quite what I imagined, as the greens were on top of my potato, and the sour cream was different than American, in which it was much thicker and a bit tart.
Service isn’t the best, but I guess being an American, my standards are different than European service. And, being in Europe, no refills.

Né vous laissez pas décourager par le manqué chronique d’amabilité du staff, ni par la déco très ex-​RDA. Ce lieu vaudra surtout pour la vue inégalée qu’il offre. Et il n’est pas exclu que vous vous laissiez embarquer par l’Ostalgie grâce à sa cuisine simple mais réussie.

Perfect service, excellent food, great location!
We visited this restaurant by chance because it was suggested to us by a good friend from Calgary!
The first page of the menu already lists mouthwatering seasonal specials which make it hard to decide what do order. Further on in the menu there are a variety of different dishes for every taste including a full vegetarian menu and several items for people with allergies.
Adding the stunning view and the perfect service this was a 5-​star experience.
Tip: We were lucky to have freer lift passes. My understanding was that you have to pay for the ride up the tower and that there is no rebate for people visiting the restaurant.

The star is for the view. Other than that it is the worst gastronomic experience I had in Berlin so far. Their reservation system is overbooked and the guy at the entrance has no clue how to handle the onslaught of tourists trying to get seated for their reserved time slot. And when they made us wait for over an hour for our table they still stuck us with a table at the inside away from the window. The place was half empty but we were not able to sit at the requested window seat. Reason: They are holing those tables for large tour groups. I guess these groups are considered repeat customers and they do not want to upset the tour group organizers, but you just don’t make your guests wait for over an hour and still not deliver what you had promised. When we spoke to the manager why we couldn’t be seated as requested we were told that she simply can not do anything for us. Tell us that at the beginning without wasting our time like that. Totally lame!

Eine n tollen Blick aber aber um nsch obrn zu kommen muss man lange warten

The view is beautiful and worth the visit. The restaurant is shamefully expensive and the food is avarage. Pasta for 17 euros, fish for 24, coffee 4.5 ect. And not that tasty. I also had a cake in the end, which was full of gelatine and tasteless. Even that was bad. Go for the view but skip the restaurant.

Nothing will label you a tourist faster than paying the 9.50 Euros to stand in a line for a half-​hour, getting pat down by security guards, figuring out how to insert your ticket into the machine, and squeezing yourself among deodorant-​challenged tourists in the small elevator that takes you to the top of this Space Needle knockoff. It was built in the late sixties to show off East German dominance, and it still has that cold, austere look about it on the outside visible from most everywhere in Berlin.
Once up there, you have to fight tooth and nail for a view, but luckily, with 360 degrees to choose from, you’re bound to get a snapshot or two of worthwhile vistas. After I did a complete circle, I made an impulsive move to try their revolving restaurant upstairs. I’m sorry I did. Even though there were plenty of tables adjacent to the window, the hostess saw fit to seat me at an interior table given that I was a party of one. The menu selection was downright dreary as if it represented the meal plan for a retirement home in Miami.
Still recovering from breakfast, I decided to go for two appetizers — a 9-​Euro Grilled Rissole Steak on a Bread Roll with a Salad — which in reality, was a mealy hamburger with greens and strange dribbles of ketchup and mayo (see photo), as well as the 12-​Euro Pumpkin Trilogy — which presents the slices of pumpkin braised, boiled and marinated in a mixed frisee salad (see photo). The pumpkin plate was actually decent enough, but what happened after I finished was appalling even for a tourist trap. My waiter did a disappearing act mid-​meal.
Getting the attention of the wait staff for the next 45 minutes — yes, 45 minutes — was a comedy of errors as they moved like androids on amphetamines ignoring anyone who wasn’t at their own tables. I finally flagged down a waitress who saw I was flustered and took that moment to pretend she didn’t speak English. I couldn’t wait to get out of there despite the panoramic views, but of course, I faced another twenty-​minute queue to get down the tower. Go if you want the lovely views in your digital camera but not if you want great food in your stomach.
FOOD — 2.5 stars… bland food fit for a brunch with grandma and her bridge club
AMBIANCE — 3.5 stars… well, the views are nice… they should be
SERVICE — 2 stars… I can get ignored back in the US
TOTAL — 2 stars… the service and the long queues drop this down the list of Berlin priorities

A great view of the city from an iconic structure. A little expensive just to visit the top but has to be done.

It was quite interesting to see Berlin from above on a Friday night.
It wasn’t busy at all so we could have a relaxed stay on top and discover the sights and buildings for quite a while.
I’d recommend it, but maybe it’s better to go during a day when the view is better.

Voilà un truc cher à Berlin et ultra touristique! Il a fallu que je les motive, mes troupes, pour les convaincre de déjeuner tout la haut!
Mais après avoir fait la queue pour le restaurant, et quelques spätzle plus tard, nous étions comme ennivrés d’avoir pu embrasser toute la ville si paisiblement.
Les plats sont authentiquement allemands et plutôt bons, et toute la déco, des couloirs de l’ascenseur jusqu’au mobilier du restaurant est d’époque.
c’est un must see!

It’s so typically touristy it’s almost shameful to pay the money to ride up there for dinner. BUT! It’s completely worth it to do it once, just once, and go up with friends and order a couple rounds of beers as you spin your way through Berlin.
The food and desserts, actually, are pretty good — but these five stars are for drinking in a rotating globe!
Although fun to drink in, don’t overindulgeyou will really feel the spin of that sphere after round 3 of null funfs.